tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10479000423853975292024-02-21T07:41:18.489-08:00BBI'm a young professional writing about my life and experiences.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.comBlogger519125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-86192133152695832024-01-21T19:57:00.000-08:002024-01-21T20:17:33.083-08:00A New Life<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbdKqSmXAbc3SatA3xc6_moh11yFnhyb3aoWy0nDKIpudJp_M0Zihpf_6M8Xr0cK-ipFtMs4EByH8AwJR_9UNGT-NsopEpeMIW6mObuZR2r2EQeNUQb7Qu5sARhuPdW1fziQP1KIARDNccIiR6VIGL2vDazaY7fle3S4VzzhXdRizY8UQn5UmeQ44x6rR/s800/sky.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbdKqSmXAbc3SatA3xc6_moh11yFnhyb3aoWy0nDKIpudJp_M0Zihpf_6M8Xr0cK-ipFtMs4EByH8AwJR_9UNGT-NsopEpeMIW6mObuZR2r2EQeNUQb7Qu5sARhuPdW1fziQP1KIARDNccIiR6VIGL2vDazaY7fle3S4VzzhXdRizY8UQn5UmeQ44x6rR/s320/sky.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>It's a strange thing when your dreams come true. Then they're not your dreams anymore, are they? They're just your life. Good and bad, thrilling and infuriating, exceptional and mundane. Your day-to-day routine is shot through with these moments of surreality, little thrills that make your stomach leap like you're on a rollercoaster while a little voice in your head squeals with glee. And then you remember that you left your lunch in your apartment. </p><p>It's been a long, long time since October 29, 2022, when I last posted here. A bit over a year in chronological time. Something on the order of a few centuries in terms of lived experience. Back then I was in Alaska, contemplating the master's degree in special education I'd begun working on the previous summer, and actively mourning the man from whom I'd been separated for nine lonely, excruciating months. His spectre was with me all the time then, haunting the kitchen where we made chicken-noodle soup together and the bed where we laid and the empty present that was supposed to have been our beautiful future. His was the face of a million wonderful possibilities lost. </p><p>But time, as they say, heals all wounds. I'm not sure how much stock I put in the fullness of that convalescence, though it's undeniable that with enough distance, enough months, enough years, the hemorrhage turned into a trickle. The blister became just a sunburn. And in my broader life, as I've always done, I kept planning and striving and building. Hoping that one of my many glittering dreams would spring to life and carry me to something new. As it happens, not one of them came true; two did. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8_M3ohhW2FoBQcGlS_tquKurE6qUyxCp-rbLSD-6CinOwqhZ895tL6eIdVMZ9pviW9YackM49hyphenhyphen33ai2EDCOlOV0fr_lXKwn32BrcuEep_AxiGylFKjPrWqH701XW2kHJ9-3DYIUBDuZVuJTksy8kPKxGi4kuU_ht1GceYVAyZZ6JVmjAPJUa0-SYTMPU/s800/sky2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8_M3ohhW2FoBQcGlS_tquKurE6qUyxCp-rbLSD-6CinOwqhZ895tL6eIdVMZ9pviW9YackM49hyphenhyphen33ai2EDCOlOV0fr_lXKwn32BrcuEep_AxiGylFKjPrWqH701XW2kHJ9-3DYIUBDuZVuJTksy8kPKxGi4kuU_ht1GceYVAyZZ6JVmjAPJUa0-SYTMPU/s320/sky2.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br />In April, just in time for my thirty-fifth birthday, I learned I'd been offered admission and a full scholarship to a university in Scandinavia that offered a master's program about which I was very passionate. I duly gave notice to my school district, put in extra hours with after-school tutoring to shore up my bank account, and was knee deep in a student-visa process when a second e-mail found its way to my inbox at five in the morning on a beautiful June day. I read it over and over again, scarcely daring to believe the words were true. <p></p><p>"We are pleased to offer you..."</p><p>Everything. They offered everything.</p><p>I first applied for a job with Global Company, an international public-relations firm, in 2019. I had a successful interview with them the following year, but then the pandemic rolled through everyone's plans like a boulder through bowling pins and the corporation whose lifeblood was international travel found itself dead in the water. An indefinite hiring freeze accompanied a general battening of hatches. An apologetic message informed me I'd interviewed well and that they'd be back in touch when things settled down. I simply forgot about it because they never reached out again. </p><p>Until they did. </p><p>The starting salary in the June missive was so eye popping I had to double and triple check it to make sure I had the digits right. And what about that comma? Was it supposed to have that many zeroes? I called my mother in tears because everything I'd wanted my entire adult life had just been handed to me in a few short paragraphs, but the tears of joy lasted only moments before a thought boomed loud as thunder in my head: <i>I have so much to do.</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjUu-QhM-mrl45mcPLWFwhaStb6eYThk1zFXQa1gkWj8ZbLEn5CzF9PjA54DfQZL4PSjK4LeNwii41wiMNsAPfTRCX8TGkLECs4pnrQH1_GIbh05eUvPAuc1ADQK-oeFa-4k8rABacS9GGS5bLBG68ys8luueUMN8jQSN70moG4dCVvSO2OISer3tKyZJH/s750/Alaska%20summer.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="750" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjUu-QhM-mrl45mcPLWFwhaStb6eYThk1zFXQa1gkWj8ZbLEn5CzF9PjA54DfQZL4PSjK4LeNwii41wiMNsAPfTRCX8TGkLECs4pnrQH1_GIbh05eUvPAuc1ADQK-oeFa-4k8rABacS9GGS5bLBG68ys8luueUMN8jQSN70moG4dCVvSO2OISer3tKyZJH/s320/Alaska%20summer.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I returned the scholarship. Rescinded the letter of acceptance. Cancelled that visa appointment at the embassy, because my little blond ass certainly was not going to Sweden. A fully funded master's degree sounded nice, but doubling my salary to take a job I'd dreamt of since I was twenty sounded better. And with those decisions made I closed the door on an entire life. Packed up my beautiful apartment in Iceport, said goodbye to countless friends and colleagues, spent an achingly gorgeous Alaska June teaching summer school to a group of high-schoolers who made me grateful for the gift of being an educator. And then got on a plane. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's difficult to describe how bizarre that takeoff was. I began this blog as a 19-year-old college student who wondered if he'd ever have a career or independence or personal dignity or even his own living arrangement. I achieved none of that before Alaska. And Alaska gave it to me in spades. In a very real way Alaska defined me as an adult entity, because it was where the grown-up version of me emerged and where the entirety of my professional life prior to last summer occurred. I'll always hold that place, and those six years, close to my heart. Even as, from an aisle seat on an eastbound Delta flight, I bid them goodbye. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJLGCqB1eELpD3-Ar_xnkSitZF_BATgqpIeVb0etQsvGF7LftYx0Gz18IIcN2R5aJEPUYWhLloOK2Q9ANCx5YBmtZDtbLFosQILzFeyg9ehb_LAu1Olq4mnMSi6IZINRi-Iou1tp9uujj37PcoAfd9doTSmarvupcrIuWXYCxXD24pSc6GDYmikrQwq4i/s800/apartment.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJLGCqB1eELpD3-Ar_xnkSitZF_BATgqpIeVb0etQsvGF7LftYx0Gz18IIcN2R5aJEPUYWhLloOK2Q9ANCx5YBmtZDtbLFosQILzFeyg9ehb_LAu1Olq4mnMSi6IZINRi-Iou1tp9uujj37PcoAfd9doTSmarvupcrIuWXYCxXD24pSc6GDYmikrQwq4i/s320/apartment.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div>The next few months were downright unreal. I spent August visiting family and friends, then in September moved into a fabulous corporate-housing unit for the probationary period of my employment, when I worked with domestic clients so management could view my output in real time and ensure I'd be up to snuff when the stakes were really high in an international context. Apparently I did okay, because after a Southern State fall so magnificent it routinely brought tears to my eyes and after the inestimable privilege of Christmas with my family, the word came down from admin last week: all systems go. </div><div><br /></div><div>I passed the tests and checked the boxes. Now it's time to get aboard another plane. I'll be going farther away than I've ever gone before, to a land of beauty and antiquity and pride (and, as it happens, a growing tech industry, which is why there's a role for me there in the first place). In the midst of this enormous victory, I'm struck by the degree to which our stories can shift and, with them, the self-definitions those stories give us. Two and a half years ago I was BB the teacher, whose passion was special education and whose greatest dream was to build a future <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2021/05/with-him.html">with Anthos</a> in Triantaphilon. A cozy little life in a cozy little city. Me with my stacks of papers to grade and my boyfriend zipping through work I could barely understand on an expensive computer screen. </div><div><br /></div><div>Is it weird that, even with the possibility of that reality long dead, it's an image I still find so wonderful? Anthos had his faults but he was an amazing man, and making pennies as a SPED teacher didn't bother me if we had his huge paycheck to fall back on. Now Anthos and I have been split for two years, that cozy little city has been replaced by one of the most massive metropolises in the world, and Anthos's paystubs aren't quite so awe inspiring. How could they be? I make more than him. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojccMJEXEX-Z-56kCqpkgrvB4Cgdkk0JchElN-PnjWixXHtEGE40tOZp5naWM3bEz8rV1DkuPzIC3mkC_23APHi0XFtnhK3k1mgFeYBJ1M2C4kqbp8qJAFLsjaOKPoGC9mpTSoDUwsYwoekaaSAQfOlRXSxonoD82G8BDaOe8H1exxWtzugNO1RFFgga6/s800/sky3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojccMJEXEX-Z-56kCqpkgrvB4Cgdkk0JchElN-PnjWixXHtEGE40tOZp5naWM3bEz8rV1DkuPzIC3mkC_23APHi0XFtnhK3k1mgFeYBJ1M2C4kqbp8qJAFLsjaOKPoGC9mpTSoDUwsYwoekaaSAQfOlRXSxonoD82G8BDaOe8H1exxWtzugNO1RFFgga6/s320/sky3.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Now, after all this, I don't really know what I expect out of life. And increasingly I'm not trying to expect anything in particular, which is difficult given that I've obsessively plotted next steps and new aspirations since I was about fourteen. A few years ago, though, I really thought I had it all figured out, and then that lovely frame collapsed and reconfigured in ways awful and awesome. <div><br /></div><div>Do I want to meet a man? Sure. Do I think I will eventually? Uh...sure. But there's a lot to enjoy right now about just being BB, and a lot of new responsibilities on my plate besides. I'll find the right person eventually. At present I'm preparing for a move to the other side of the planet, readying for an on-site role I'll assume very soon, and enjoying the freedom that six figures on a W9 offers.<div><br /></div><div>I feel triumphant in this moment. But also scared. The elation of my arrival here has since been mixed with a healthy dose of "Holy shit, what did I do?" even though I'm happy with my choices and know I made the right ones. I visited my younger brother Thomas over the weekend and it was hard to say goodbye. I pulled him into the closest version of a bear hug I could manage, laughable with my slender body and his huge frame, and couldn't help the tears that started to flow as I pressed my face into his shoulder. </div><div><br /></div><div>"I'm going to miss you," I croaked. He's twenty-eight years old now and a professional in the medical field after a youth that looked perilously unmoored. He has a girlfriend, an apartment, a professional progression in front of him, the whole shebang. I couldn't be prouder. </div><div><br /></div><div>"It'll be okay," he responded. "Now remember that you have a horse cock and pull yourself together."</div><div><br /></div><div>"You have to come to Albion," I said. "It's halfway between us. I'll take time off work and we can meet there."</div><div><br /></div><div>"God," he said, shaking his head with a laugh. "'Let's meet in Europe, halfway between us.' How is this your life?"</div><div><br /></div><div>How indeed? </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOSR5ALrkTxCoAE_msudjPgPIQBomwvWgiJ0bDglzMzLYv2GLg4EOTwu27_44Qi7fwdvbgHaUCOKMqSh3jWs7b7mzmlAk3gitp44_kidVxQXjc0_M1K76y9F6NNIEZU6UuG32ts4_v9jpeIIuHnd48vfFBQZIneWy8qVboB-8eBElAEQv46_Q6mDGeEgu/s800/apartment2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOSR5ALrkTxCoAE_msudjPgPIQBomwvWgiJ0bDglzMzLYv2GLg4EOTwu27_44Qi7fwdvbgHaUCOKMqSh3jWs7b7mzmlAk3gitp44_kidVxQXjc0_M1K76y9F6NNIEZU6UuG32ts4_v9jpeIIuHnd48vfFBQZIneWy8qVboB-8eBElAEQv46_Q6mDGeEgu/s320/apartment2.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div>As to this blog, who knows? I thought I was done with it, and then today I just wanted to write. Maybe I'm too much of a storyteller to ever really stop. But in keeping with my evolution where such things are concerned, I'm going to let it unfold as it will. The kind of monthly updates I did in previous years feel unlikely at the moment, but anything could happen. </div><div><br /></div><div>As the Spirit moves me, so I'll do.</div></div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-31703147434880276772022-10-29T19:50:00.010-07:002022-11-03T22:18:29.404-07:00Dear Jon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlWB_Pds8wv2_2l0S5H9MhMWaH8eutBLCBkZ6JHaXxDJfNNQkZUcLGytqGKvGUsvvzKC6ihcYie62oHio4IiSt6bAVr1PRWsTWWvcSFB5n0I1MmspHKDfrUCxg4pamStMz3XuJCDeMz6sBHTFVP5gkffvHDiFY6p5gt3zDH2JicjMWeMtLKP7ve0nxTg/s736/fireworks.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="736" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlWB_Pds8wv2_2l0S5H9MhMWaH8eutBLCBkZ6JHaXxDJfNNQkZUcLGytqGKvGUsvvzKC6ihcYie62oHio4IiSt6bAVr1PRWsTWWvcSFB5n0I1MmspHKDfrUCxg4pamStMz3XuJCDeMz6sBHTFVP5gkffvHDiFY6p5gt3zDH2JicjMWeMtLKP7ve0nxTg/s320/fireworks.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I lied, love</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It's always you</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">From <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>that first week</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When you were beautiful words on a screen</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(“I think," I said, embarrassed because I never get swept away, "I just met my husband")</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To the last</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When you were words again</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A string of characters</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Vulgar black on white</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Inadequate binary</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Yes or no</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Good enough or not</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Here or gone</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Two banal colors </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Concealing glorious heterochromia</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Explosions of glittering prismatic hue</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That bathed us in Portland</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where the vista of a whole life unfolded from your living room window</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where a panoply of treasure and trust billowed across the bed we shared</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where I teased you about the thermostat and enfolded you in my smooth skin</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To warm you when you were cold</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where we laughed at the mess our loving made</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">"That table's ruined," you sighed </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And I'd destroy it with you again and again and again</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A thousand times over</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Until I got perfect at the demolition</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That bathed us in Baltimore</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where my grandmother said you had kind eyes</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One of the last things she'll remember is that you made me happy</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That bathed us in Virginia</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where the store clerk smiled because we gave her good vibes</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where my best friend took me by the elbow</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">With a sharp smile and knowing eyes</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And whispered so you couldn't hear: "I like him"</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That bathed us in Georgetown</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where fireworks and Prosecco and your kisses made a golden haze</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">My favorite 4th of July</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Washington will always be ours</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Sparkles on the river</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Mimosas and smoked salmon</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Train rides and hot days and gentle drunkenness</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The first place you told me you loved me</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">By saying you couldn't say it</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But that you felt it</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So we came up with that ridiculous euphemism</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A code word</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That meant not just "love"</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But OUR love</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The love you bore for me and I for you</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Silly and knowing and flexible</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Stretching to account for my fears and yours</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Pliant enough to absorb the sharp edges and render them soft</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That bathed us in Christmas-morning snow</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When you held a mirror to my doubt and showed me I could be wonderful without changing</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The first inkling of my beautiful boyhood came from your mouth</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Not mine</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I love you for so much</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But I love you especially for that</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And for your laugh</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The way it hitches in disbelief at me</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For your mockery each and every time we go to the grocery store</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Because I never know where I'm parked</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For how you sputter at the mere suggestion of spicy food</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For the absurdity that you're an Indian who can't eat curry</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For our first date in a carwash</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And our second in a candy aisle</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For insisting I be treated well</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Even when I didn’t </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For when you used me as a thesaurus</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For when I used you as a calculator</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For when we dreamed of the desert</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And then of the pines</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And then of Vancouver</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And then of Berlin</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For Netflix nights</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For scandalous asides</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For the article you sent me---when I was already reading it, too</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For knowing me so well you could guess my mind</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Even a thousand miles away</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For when you still missed me</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And longed to see my face</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For how you wept </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When you read my Christmas card</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For "Your presence makes me calm"</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Because that was all I ever wanted to give you</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For every answered phone call</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For every returned text</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For your hands dancing down my feet</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And over my body</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For your lips on mine</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For the fierce hug at the airport</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For, "Don't worry, Love. It's only eight weeks."</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But then it was never.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For the tears you shed the first morning you woke up without me</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Yours have dried</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But mine just keep flowing</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">"You have to move on"</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When so many say it </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Mustn't it be true?</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">No white after Labor Day</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Wait half a week before texting</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Nobody can pull off bangs</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Marble countertops are passé</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Everybody knows</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You certainly did</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When you repeated their mantra:</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">"You have to move on"</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I told you I did</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To give you that closure</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And pretend I had it, too</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It's the line I recite when people ask how I am</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That we're better as friends</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That I'm happy this way</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">"You have to move on"</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I told you I did</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But moving on means letting go of hope</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Not of you</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now hope is long gone</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And it’s just you who lingers</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I release everything else</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Yet can never unclench my hands from your memory</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">"You have to move on"</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I told you I did</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To acceptance of this absence</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To peace with this ache</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To the dating game</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Where I look for the man who can be second best</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A substitute for the only one I've ever loved</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Pepsi Cola</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Palatable if you don't think about it</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Never the real thing</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You promised I'd find someone right</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But I already have</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You promised he’s out there somewhere</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But he lives in Portland</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been in his apartment</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve counted the grey hairs in his glossy black mane</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And the fears behind his crinkling dark eyes</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And each time he was strong enough to overcome them </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And the slowly ticking minutes</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Since we began leaking away</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And each bailout bucket </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">In succession they all overflowed</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And the endless accumulated leagues </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Since Mile Marker 21st of January</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When he drifted beyond my soft touch</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And each thudding second</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Since the one when I knew I lost him</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">You asked me to believe</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I told you I would</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">"You have to move on"</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I told you I did</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I lied, love</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It's always you</div></div></div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-82122899924018396602022-08-12T17:40:00.006-07:002022-08-12T17:53:34.930-07:00The Boy Returns<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVzyZGrvtxiCw5kXH0xjWoQxsFhhbu92H5jhdrzj4AR7jxtSYrDUr-K-zKAh_lbDYi0-jNGnClnM7RhS6RneUF5eqOd1jG1KdBPGRmapc0DnoPeAb7_5zIl0mYKAU_B7WSEztzWMn-2iDyisyWMsk1dUpjaqL73YMxlNkfmZ3U6gqGF5qhludMsj1LZg/s800/b1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVzyZGrvtxiCw5kXH0xjWoQxsFhhbu92H5jhdrzj4AR7jxtSYrDUr-K-zKAh_lbDYi0-jNGnClnM7RhS6RneUF5eqOd1jG1KdBPGRmapc0DnoPeAb7_5zIl0mYKAU_B7WSEztzWMn-2iDyisyWMsk1dUpjaqL73YMxlNkfmZ3U6gqGF5qhludMsj1LZg/s320/b1.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p>Look at the history of this blog. Across its reach, strewn over this improbable fourteen years, you'll find trauma and abuse and upheaval and tumult of a sufficiently visceral quality to make your hair stand on end. Some of what I chose to share here is shocking, both in its quality and in its honesty--so much so that I've been dimly aware for a few years now that I might want to go back and do some judicious editing of the more jaw-dropping entries. I came to you all in the spring of 2008 as a literal teenager, and, basically, as a child, one who carried with him the legacy of intense and unrelenting hardship.</p><p>Is it any wonder, then, that I didn't entirely know myself? Any wonder that healthy processes of exploration didn't happen? Any wonder that escape into the opposite gender looked more attractive to me than did accepting the version of me who already existed? How could it not, when society had done so much to tell me that that version was distasteful? Disgusting. Contemptible. Wrong.</p><p>This is not to say that I wasn't on to something or that I'm not transgender. If one takes "transgender" to mean a person whose physiology and neurology are out of sync in terms of sexual presentation then I'd still say I more of less am a transgender person: my body is male in form whereas my personality, world view, communication patterns, and overall orientation are, always have, and always will be essentially female. That will never change. But to unambiguously be the opposite gender is one thing and to have substantial elements of it another, as I discovered to my own surprise and chagrin. </p><p>I was looking for easy answers. A single checked box that would put me squarely in the category of "normal" when for my entire life I'd been an asterisk on every single list where I appeared. The exception. The anomaly. The odd one out. And as a woman, I thought, I'd simply make so much more sense. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjhSoTaY2a3pMQiuK4K47kgdnwD2kb4KxWtb0s92W0q40_9UGlbopsrWSmEuSZyKgxDyTge0SnCyWbMH5LDkF2mVfb_RcAe3vVaNgBJQBeqrynp2o005VlFe-YgihsUhRtqhBXaDhcfwniFCkldq4I_hIVYybxcR18llTuU6DSOjRD3B_Zp3YcyWWPg/s800/b2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="602" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjhSoTaY2a3pMQiuK4K47kgdnwD2kb4KxWtb0s92W0q40_9UGlbopsrWSmEuSZyKgxDyTge0SnCyWbMH5LDkF2mVfb_RcAe3vVaNgBJQBeqrynp2o005VlFe-YgihsUhRtqhBXaDhcfwniFCkldq4I_hIVYybxcR18llTuU6DSOjRD3B_Zp3YcyWWPg/s320/b2.jpeg" width="241" /></a></div><p>That was how, after four years of personal reflection and more than two years in therapy, I made the choice to begin a month-long trial of estrogen at the end of May. I'd explored and explored, and all I could do beyond that was take the leap. Granted, I took that leap with life-preservers firmly attached. I began on a low introductory dose of the hormone and planned from the beginning to assess where I was at the month mark. And then I waited.</p><p>Waited for the peace, clarity, and sense of rightness that so many transgender women report upon beginning a course of hormone-replacement therapy that floods their bodies with the substance they believe they ought to have had all along. </p><p>It didn't come. </p><p>Instead estrogen was, for me at least, a rollercoaster ride of emotions that saw my inherently anxious and neurotic nature ramped up dramatically, with the lows but not the highs enhanced and the overall volatility of my moods heightened in a way that made me feel as though I was constantly driving down a rickety country road with no seatbelt or shock absorbers. Which is not to say that nothing about estrogen was positive, because other changes happened. My, oh my did they happen.</p><p>Over a course of weeks I experienced developments that every medical guideline I'd consulted said would take months to occur. My body hair thinned to the point of being basically gone around two weeks in. My skin had softened and grown far more sensitive by about the same juncture. My libido died within literal days. And one day, three or four weeks in, I caught myself in the mirror and did a double-take.</p><p>Who was that? That person who looked so soft and beautiful and so clearly, unambiguously female? All my life I'd longed to be a pretty girl. And there she was, staring right back at me. A pretty girl. Her eyes were slightly more prominent and almond shaped than mine. Her skin was clearer and lighter. Her lips were fuller and their color a touch more vibrant. The face was mine, still, but mine in a way I'd never seen. Friends made comments. My gender therapist, who'd been seeing me for two years by that point, expressed outright shock. </p><p>"My daughter has long blonde hair like you," she said in a text. "When you sent me that photo of you I thought for a moment that it was her."</p><p>Medical guidelines are unanimous in saying that changes to facial composition on estrogen should not manifest before about a year. I was at less than four weeks. </p><p>The moment of truth for me came days before I completed my first month on HRT. I was getting dressed that morning, trying on a cute new slinky pink thing, when I realized that my nipples could feel every groove in the fabric as it slipped over my head and fell down my chest. That increased sensitivity, which an inspection immediately verified, was the very first sign that my breasts were beginning to develop. As with so many other things, this wasn't supposed to happen for half a year at <i>minimum</i>. But here we were.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2Ls39ZQu2ZfvbfJeWselskA4z51znzD_RMYth9B7jVOOGj_q3gprL4MMDJj3f2DD0My6G4YkEzCjnP6R96sYUnMEqq0FglsivAEIFNDozvZNNXIHZSpaKwfEvpbgocxI2yb-S5WpZOQBpmXw1_ZDxEMiDcTJXQRqyCD3GE0ToAYIovnzenSsJfvwHQ/s800/b3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2Ls39ZQu2ZfvbfJeWselskA4z51znzD_RMYth9B7jVOOGj_q3gprL4MMDJj3f2DD0My6G4YkEzCjnP6R96sYUnMEqq0FglsivAEIFNDozvZNNXIHZSpaKwfEvpbgocxI2yb-S5WpZOQBpmXw1_ZDxEMiDcTJXQRqyCD3GE0ToAYIovnzenSsJfvwHQ/s320/b3.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p><i>If you let this go on much longer,</i> I told myself. <i>You'll have to buy a bra. And you'll have to wear that bra for the rest of your life.</i></p><p>And that did it. I stopped estrogen within days, and within a few more days had flushed my remaining supply down the toilet. Which begged an awful question: Where do I go from here?</p><p>For years I'd pinned my hopes, my validity, my self-actualization, on moving forward through life as a female, but the moment she began to come out I panicked and slammed the lid shut on the process. What did that say about me? Did it make me a fraud? Deluded? Someone, as I feared in the darkest and loneliest moments following that choice, who was incapable of happiness in <i>either gender?</i></p><p>At some point in the days of crying and cataclysmic depression that accompanied the end of hormone therapy I remembered words that a friend, Raven, had spoken to me when I was living in Point Goldlace.</p><p>"You know, it doesn't have to be one thing or another," she told me when I confided that I was struggling with gender identity and considering transition. She was Athabascan, the mother of two of my students, and informed by both ample life experience and a cultural grounding that saw past traditional Western views of male and female. "We have a word for people like you: Two Spirit."</p><p>Two souls in one body. Not wholly one or wholly the other. Not in between. <i>Both.</i></p><p>I think I knew on some inherent level that Raven was right even back then. I didn't want to see it because I associated malehood primarily with all the ways in which I'd failed to be a man, and femininity offered a welcome framework in which so much about me made sense and met cultural expectations. </p><p>But the thing is, I liked certain parts of being male. Fit with certain parts of being male. And always had. My cluttered, messy nature. The ability, as a guy, to get out of bed, throw something on, and stride forward into the world with absolutely no fucks given. And my sexuality. God, my sexuality.</p><p>Male genitalia is fun. Gay sex is fun. The feeling of vigor, power, confidence, and vague arousal that comes after a session in the gym is fun. The way that lust can, in moments, absolutely overpower you is fun. </p><p>So much of who I am interpersonally is female and when I was considering transition I naturally focused on that. But that focus caused me to overlook very real fears about not being female enough in certain particulars and equally valid fears that the male elements I'd have to sacrifice wouldn't be worth the trade-off.</p><p><i>What if,</i> I asked myself in a moment of startling clarity about two days after stopping hormones. <i>You're just a really feminine man? And what if it's okay to be that?</i></p><p>And I cried and cried and cried. Tears of joy--and of relief. For in that instant it was evident that the male form was indescribably more beautiful to me than the female form could ever hope to be and that I'd very narrowly avoided robbing myself of that form forever. I wouldn't have to move forward as a transgender woman, passing but always wondering whether I'd be girl enough for a man to love me or a crowd of people to believe that I was who I claimed I was. I'd move forward as a gay man. Boyish, soft, youthful, androgynous. As I always was before.</p><p>And good Lord, isn't that a glorious thing? To be the asterisk? To be the homosexual male who's a shade too pretty? Not many people sit in that spot, but <i>I</i> do and it's what I was made for.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH9tjv2XoGBVlQvcIIgg2eZT6oGfcjH7EETikrQFs1iuYvvaSsHPKKHTlh9DH8x_1JNLiEStoXw3GgT02YCCKYqn6oIPOoY2qJXEJRZcpnFJ8VI62MjVwEeoZfGiLj_xm8PyfcknBaWrSHx29B03ANBawCClwQS3F4aWycoCHmqMD7B6dq1XDwtuzVhg/s728/b4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="728" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH9tjv2XoGBVlQvcIIgg2eZT6oGfcjH7EETikrQFs1iuYvvaSsHPKKHTlh9DH8x_1JNLiEStoXw3GgT02YCCKYqn6oIPOoY2qJXEJRZcpnFJ8VI62MjVwEeoZfGiLj_xm8PyfcknBaWrSHx29B03ANBawCClwQS3F4aWycoCHmqMD7B6dq1XDwtuzVhg/s320/b4.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This beautiful self-acceptance does not, to clarify, mean all facets of me are now resolved and that gender ambiguity won't--or doesn't--raise its head. The deep dive on transgender science I did in the many months prior to my course of estrogen led me to believe that the condition is basically an intersex disorder affecting neurology, and I still feel that way. I still feel, likewise, that if you popped me into an MRI machine and took a look under my hood you would see an engine that looked a whole lot more pink than blue. I don't think I'm not female. But I also don't think I'm not male. And I certainly don't want to undertake the course of surgeries, procedures, medications, and overall lifelong clinical intervention that would be required to let me live as a functioning woman.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All of that could one day change. Now, having experienced what I have, I know that estrogen therapy is always there and that I'd achieve extremely rapid feminization if I ever undertook the regimen again. But for now...I like my genitalia. I like the male hormonal experience. And I'm learning to live happily--maybe even, one day, proudly?--with my asterisk held firmly in hand. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The path back to manhood is probably not as simple as a moment of profound personal revelation, if only because I don't seem to have quite made it to manhood in the first place. Even before estrogen I was smaller, weaker, softer, lovelier, than the other men I knew. Losing weight was like pulling teeth. Putting on muscle had always been impossible, even with rigorous diet and exercise supervised by personal trainers. My soft face had gotten me called "ma'am" since I was a teenager, which made sense given my female skull shape and lack of brow bone. My voice, androgynous and breathy when low, sharp and womanly when high, led to similar things on the phone. All of that felt incredibly validating when I wanted to become a woman. But all of it was still there when I decided to live as a man.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"The good news," my new doctor told me as she surveyed the blood results taken about three weeks after my estrogen therapy ended. "Is that your testosterone is already back to the baseline you had before you started estrogen. The bad news is that that baseline was not very good."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A gender doctor whom I'm likewise consulting scrunched her face in concentration as we discussed my situation over a Zoom appointment. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Have you ever been assessed for an intersex condition?" she asked. "I'd be really curious."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The path to male health has been eye opening and will have more developments yet. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But I'm here. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Me. BlackenedBoy who became BrightenedBoy, who's now a man but who will always carry something of boyhood--and girlhood--inside him. No path in life is perfect and mine has, perhaps, had more pitfalls and peculiar off-ramps than most, but I feel at last able to walk it in peace with how and who I was made to be. And I can find my calling, my partner, my place, without the immobilizing ambiguity that made these last years an agony of trying and failing to fit molds both male and female.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheFZUOwSDUb6UjQyQBd-fKb9wwRZm1HhH-DGOXSMUh-y2TgeDd9kjAX0OTw97CAEWGWcTq_JDw7SpBlOr9Q88bTMPTxJsum6e-zIHi5cam2EiqUf-0KmsDPpwrSCOvQRxblkFzkhLDMwtRaKei1Izzf7PdRd7YvvbkyPMJnwQ-x_bpCoWacdWzR4lVTg/s800/b5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheFZUOwSDUb6UjQyQBd-fKb9wwRZm1HhH-DGOXSMUh-y2TgeDd9kjAX0OTw97CAEWGWcTq_JDw7SpBlOr9Q88bTMPTxJsum6e-zIHi5cam2EiqUf-0KmsDPpwrSCOvQRxblkFzkhLDMwtRaKei1Izzf7PdRd7YvvbkyPMJnwQ-x_bpCoWacdWzR4lVTg/s320/b5.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'll return, soon, to offer details on how other parts of my life have evolved since the entry I left here last May. Thank you so much for your patience.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's good to be back.</div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-32309761748842578842021-05-31T16:07:00.003-07:002021-05-31T16:14:58.492-07:00With Him<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH67w0FfCkiI0pzZgQq4OQAoj2cBavtHl7myDNMUD1-Kn3ml7B8m5ZKuA2G08MfI4Wnqt_V6CNK6Tf2M_0TM0Z2h9Q2I8wm3asBPMSXFIeQimXZqwUHrDPz5xPGX2ZJRTBcXwomLB5PUFo/s800/T1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="602" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH67w0FfCkiI0pzZgQq4OQAoj2cBavtHl7myDNMUD1-Kn3ml7B8m5ZKuA2G08MfI4Wnqt_V6CNK6Tf2M_0TM0Z2h9Q2I8wm3asBPMSXFIeQimXZqwUHrDPz5xPGX2ZJRTBcXwomLB5PUFo/s320/T1.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>It finally happened: that job in Iceport. The one I dreamed of over four successive dark winters. The one I gunned for hard with desperation and then with ruthless, cold focus. It's mine.</p><p>And somehow all I can think about, as I walk the rose-strewn streets of Triantaphilon with Anthos, is throwing it all away to begin anew in this sun-drenched city. With bookstores and coffee shops and quirky little stores. With warmth and vibrance and endless waves of emerald-green trees beneath banners that proclaim welcome to people like me. With this man who looks at me through astonished eyes and tells me how beautiful I am. With his lips that say he'll want me, no matter what I decide. </p><p>With him.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5h3qv6xhf6yrDpK4qjyyM5lBcv302FwZy26m_4KLn7XnSuCk8iY2RQTGPllYFmj1dEPloY2ZRBClf1YzJkYZvNRke19MCGdHyyKEGg3FyZC7ymbBadADkGeUC8k5KPU1-qFZqXjwYfmsP/s800/Anthos.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="599" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5h3qv6xhf6yrDpK4qjyyM5lBcv302FwZy26m_4KLn7XnSuCk8iY2RQTGPllYFmj1dEPloY2ZRBClf1YzJkYZvNRke19MCGdHyyKEGg3FyZC7ymbBadADkGeUC8k5KPU1-qFZqXjwYfmsP/s320/Anthos.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I have no idea what's coming or where I'll be when it does. What I <i>do</i> know is that I'm tired of living for other people's expectations, or for duty, or for the long game. I want to live for the moment. For the desires of my heart. For, at last, my happiness, which I've neglected so long in the service of literally everything else. For the right now. And right now, walking beside him in the sunshine makes me feel more whole and more hopeful than I have in a very, very long time. <div><br /></div><div>This emotional rollercoaster is headed for a destination I'm not yet able to divine. Once it stops, I'm getting off at a port of my choosing--Alaska and career be damned. I've been so obsessed with following the path and climbing the ladder, with doing the responsible thing, that I've missed a beautiful and elegant truth: at any point, you can burn it all down. Start over. You don't have to continue investing in a choice that no longer serves you just because you've invested so much in it already. </div><div><br /></div><div>So many decisions. Now I just have to work out what I want.</div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-6326242946014921572021-04-06T00:17:00.000-07:002021-04-06T00:17:24.885-07:00The Tides That Shift So Suddenly<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10dKpFKKJ-tD1mwseSiaq_eegspQ3oaIqHmuAv_cUea0jacMmNe8IWhFTO2hKsOjMkA0otVgenazjyN8gEoKtbiuGyWU5-d9Ikx7CV-_jtVXWb1EZbnWahiSmtu4WDBiNM8B38rJ7OFSJ/s800/Alaska.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10dKpFKKJ-tD1mwseSiaq_eegspQ3oaIqHmuAv_cUea0jacMmNe8IWhFTO2hKsOjMkA0otVgenazjyN8gEoKtbiuGyWU5-d9Ikx7CV-_jtVXWb1EZbnWahiSmtu4WDBiNM8B38rJ7OFSJ/s320/Alaska.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>A whole lot has changed in five months. </p><p>I'm not even referring to the election, though I would be remiss not to take this moment to address the on-the-fence equivocators who so kindly informed me that "life goes on" no matter which side wins: life didn't "go on" for the people who died in the Republican coup attempt on January 6. Nor for the half-million who perished in the pandemic. Nor for the hundreds of families permanently destroyed by acts of incalculable cruelty carried out on our southern border on the order of a failed one-termer who does not dignify being named. Remember when armed traitors were prowling the halls of Congress, hunting the Speaker of the House and the Vice President of the United States with the express intention of summarily executing them? </p><p>I sure do. I remember it because I was one of many progressives who cautioned, for years, that the anti-democratic rhetoric being espoused by the one-termer was calculated--and likely--to provoke political violence if left unchecked. None of you wanted to listen. I hope you carry the weight of that smugness, of that determined and intentional ignorance, every day. I hope you know what nearly happened in this country and I hope you know that, on however infinitesimal a level, you played some part in it by refusing to see what was in front of your face and by disbelieving the people who shouted unheeded warnings again and again and again. </p><p>But I digress. And the failed one-termer deserves no more of our time or attention, does he?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-t46ZvL0LJNOrJHnp_sIw9YXkbLr0ph3KM31WKLev6VPOEgJKIG2NCikAEz7gp1MZnpIKkSPZKjuqwWyCQQlLRsYd1kH0nZKfKi3OKCe5Dv0z9_zS9vK3eUZbMTS2KZaknb6sNv0VxBJF/s800/Alaska2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="595" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-t46ZvL0LJNOrJHnp_sIw9YXkbLr0ph3KM31WKLev6VPOEgJKIG2NCikAEz7gp1MZnpIKkSPZKjuqwWyCQQlLRsYd1kH0nZKfKi3OKCe5Dv0z9_zS9vK3eUZbMTS2KZaknb6sNv0VxBJF/s320/Alaska2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p>Things have a way, once it seems they're fixed in place, of shifting rapidly beneath you, and I can't tell if that's effort or luck or some serendipitous combination of the two, but I sure am grateful. I was in a rut. A rut of many facets, some old and some new, but all converging to make me feel as though I was stuck. Wanting to leave the village system but unable to break out. Looking for a partner but coming up blank. Aware of my gender identity but too scared to act on it (and, by implication, consigning myself to a half-life wherein I saw my true self but never moved towards her). And then it broke.</p><p>The breaking came in phases, of course, and each one of them had in common my decision to push, unrelentingly and without apology, until something moved. </p><p>"The Bible says You give us the desires of our hearts," I prayed during one especially fraught night in October. "And that You don't put on us more than we can take. Well I've hit my limit. I'm done. I am tired of asking You for the same things over and over again and getting absolutely nothing. If You won't help me, then I'll find help elsewhere."</p><p>If my threatening the good Lord above to go outright pagan doesn't illustrate the level of exhaustion under which I was operating then nothing really can, and to say that I was at my wits' end would be to sanitize the situation considerably. I was lonely. Tired. Unfulfilled. Purposeless. And just not willing to do it anymore. We Christians are told to trust meekly in "the plan," believing--often despite significant circumstantial evidence to the contrary--that God has our best interests at heart and that He will enact them if only we have the patience and fidelity to accept that He'll give us what we need. </p><p>You know, I tried that. But The Plan<span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">™</span> seemed to entail me spending a whole lot of time miserable and isolated while the rest of the world danced in sunshine far, far away. So I decided it was time for a new plan, God willing or, well, not. </p><p>One of the first rungs popped in January. </p><p>Teachers operate on year-long contracts that are issued each spring in advance of the following school year, and as this particular district sends them out criminally early--within weeks of the New Year, whereas other localities don't send theirs until March or April--I knew pretty quickly that I'd not been extended an offer to return for the Fall '21 term. When my repeated good-faith questions about what exactly had happened and if I needed to improve somehow were met with conflicting--that is, dishonest--answers, I mentally moved on. Made some calls. Did some interviews. Viaborea wound up hiring me back after all, no explanation given--and then seemed shocked and shaken to learn I'd pursued employment elsewhere. </p><p>"Are you not coming back next year?" asked Mr. Coin, my principal. He'd shuttled me into an empty classroom and looked harried. "I just got a call from HR in Iceport asking about you."</p><p>"Oh," I responded, trying to hide both my surprise and my delight. "I mean, I didn't know if I had a contract yet with you guys, so I did sit for an interview. But I didn't think anything of it when I didn't hear from them for a little bit."</p><p>"Well, you know we'd love to have you back."</p><p>You know what they say, Boss Man: play stupid games--win stupid prizes. You should've loved to have me back on January 1.</p><p>The fate of that position, Iceport being the competitive place that it is, remains uncertain, but a handful of very complimentary phone calls with those involved in the hiring process has left me optimistic. I'll learn within the coming weeks if there's a spot for me in the city. </p><p>"And we can be roomies!" Miss Violet, a teacher friend from Point Goldlace, crowed into the telephone when I apprised her of the newest developments. "Boo, this is going to be <i>fun</i>!"</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCh2T1D8Pa06p0hPpIbkePOaIOEttL1vyBry8EwPxn0rb4J5INhEgxcn9ztKrHGbj1zx_hWXnM_9Fy62gVr4UB54DX3cXaQcvIIkI3rJHh2EH057CM6TlbyzvSq6GYeU-FWWav2kcvjFP0/s750/Alaska3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCh2T1D8Pa06p0hPpIbkePOaIOEttL1vyBry8EwPxn0rb4J5INhEgxcn9ztKrHGbj1zx_hWXnM_9Fy62gVr4UB54DX3cXaQcvIIkI3rJHh2EH057CM6TlbyzvSq6GYeU-FWWav2kcvjFP0/s320/Alaska3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Another rung popped in October, or at least began to, and the thing that nudged it upward was--of all things--an instant message.</p><p>I honestly don't remember what I said. I was on a subreddit, not even a proper dating site, so whatever missive I typed out to the cute guy with the wavy hair and the kind eyes was surely a banal compliment--"Sweet t-shirt, bro!"--but pleasantries yielded quickly to deeper conversations that betrayed a startling level of commonality. </p><p>"You know, I really enjoy talking to you," he messaged one day. </p><p>"Talking to me would sure be easier if you had my phone number," I playfully pushed back.</p><p>Within a week, tops, I was aware of something that I found disconcerting because I am not, ever, the person who lets their emotions carry them away or who jumps into relationships.</p><p>"Black Dress Girl," I told one of my best friends from back in the Lower 48. "I think I might have just met my husband."</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23C_HN3obItJrIzIx0u6oPHJ0ao1D-KWvO1F-846vcoRfXmxda4m_HxrEnLvC15JW1-OUTnIvv2InFBg8ZU-NOtXCuDuhnjDfucRV0Yjx6bIeRvJ3onkr0g6l9lS2EKVGpmNI5Ay5tCbC/s800/Alaska4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="601" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23C_HN3obItJrIzIx0u6oPHJ0ao1D-KWvO1F-846vcoRfXmxda4m_HxrEnLvC15JW1-OUTnIvv2InFBg8ZU-NOtXCuDuhnjDfucRV0Yjx6bIeRvJ3onkr0g6l9lS2EKVGpmNI5Ay5tCbC/s320/Alaska4.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Anthos, this man who's introduced so much possibility into my life so quickly, is thirty-two years old (his birthday is four days after mine, a fact that will prove insufferably adorable if we wind up together in the long term), and that may account for the cautious approach towards our dynamic that he was happy to share with me. Both of us were aware of the high level of compatibility we shared. Both of us knew the implications such compatibility could have. And both of us chose to take it slow. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We talked remotely for five months, at one point consciously skipping out on meeting during the Christmas holidays, before he got on a plane to Alaska in the second week of March. I was off school for spring break and his job was remote, so we AirBnb-ed it for a week and decided to see how things went. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The result: a resounding okay. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I don't feel those fireworks for you," I told him during one of our frequent conversations of refreshing insight and candor. "I mean, I like you. A lot. I just don't think those fireworks are something I feel."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I don't feel them for you, either," he said. "But I've been in relationships where I <i>did</i> feel the fireworks, and I can tell you: it doesn't last. That ends really quickly, and then you're left with the person and whether you can deal with them."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I check a lot of boxes for him. He checks a lot of boxes for me. We have similar life goals and similar ideas about what a relationship should be. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBaLmx2MKbk9nhrLVrbHZR_2NfGHVZN59VhO9Bjl8hatYZlP3Vb-PHYha3AKHgK1AbGWz9HPY_Mp0S9EXZA83hIXH08oyis_x3T26Bmimenv8EHfoUk_5Lg31UoZcmGiDjEms9A0gceol/s800/Alaska5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBaLmx2MKbk9nhrLVrbHZR_2NfGHVZN59VhO9Bjl8hatYZlP3Vb-PHYha3AKHgK1AbGWz9HPY_Mp0S9EXZA83hIXH08oyis_x3T26Bmimenv8EHfoUk_5Lg31UoZcmGiDjEms9A0gceol/s320/Alaska5.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"You know what my favorite part of this week has been?" I queried him towards the end of our stay. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Hm?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There had been plenty of romantic or at least romantic-comedy moments, from the stunning drive down the Seaside Highway to the afternoon spent at a resort to the moose-evasion we'd had to pull in the neighborhood where we'd rented a place. But any of those instances would make too much sense.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"We were getting ready to go somewhere and I was still in the bathroom doing my hair, so I called out to ask you to start the car. And then I realized, 'Oh, my God. There's someone to start the car. I don't have to do everything on my own.'"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">He crooned with laughter as the words hit home, his eyes glittering knowingly. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"My favorite part was cleaning the kitchen," he confessed. "You were just like, 'You do this and I'll do this.' We just really tackled that as a team. Neither one trying to avoid helping. We went after it together."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'd unloaded the dishwasher and he'd gathered the trash. It was magical. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQazEXqxMU053tlxRYEt8nYocIq3ETAETj6gvj12zVEjx_UNC6eSvbVAk0yvCGcspB6Wb76eH58eyNPfkCtoGvHGDvjxfC4_j-jJqGnhn7AextnARFchTrVFNCMjj8uquNfguVvSn3DXp/s800/Alaska6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQazEXqxMU053tlxRYEt8nYocIq3ETAETj6gvj12zVEjx_UNC6eSvbVAk0yvCGcspB6Wb76eH58eyNPfkCtoGvHGDvjxfC4_j-jJqGnhn7AextnARFchTrVFNCMjj8uquNfguVvSn3DXp/s320/Alaska6.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We decided ahead of time that we'd talk at the end of the week and decide whether we wanted to proceed with a formal relationship. We did. So when on Sunday, March 21, I drove Anthos to the airport, we parted as boyfriends. This relationship is not perfect and there are certainly obstacles to making it work, but we've both reached the same conclusion: that we'll overcome those barriers if we decide that doing so is worth it. That creates decisions to be made, but not to be made right now. I'm flying to his West Coast city next month and we're taking it from there. Step by step. Self-assessing along the way. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And it's a good thing we're being so flexible, because just last week the universe dropped another bomb on me: a year after my interview was indefinitely postponed because of Covid, International Organization reached out to say that they're resuming the hiring process and want me to come to Marble City this summer. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"It seems like for the longest time I had nothing going on," I told my father by telephone not long after. "And don't get me wrong: I'd rather have too many opportunities than not enough. But it's a lot to juggle."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"That's how it goes, though," he said. "One week there's nothing and then the next you have five job offers. When it rains--"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I know. It pours."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7wPbAP8qBdCggz-hHHsi3ndls9Yk06MQYzSFk2HTIorVhaJJv_r1tahLkJrNc48lettrSaxddoRhRFfM14pW58adAdwnb-YTHzazJO_K6nNtera7fPUbF-W23YlPDGAQ3wuaoJTbXc5RM/s800/Alaska7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7wPbAP8qBdCggz-hHHsi3ndls9Yk06MQYzSFk2HTIorVhaJJv_r1tahLkJrNc48lettrSaxddoRhRFfM14pW58adAdwnb-YTHzazJO_K6nNtera7fPUbF-W23YlPDGAQ3wuaoJTbXc5RM/s320/Alaska7.jpg" /></a></div><p></p>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-14147174897430787012020-11-02T01:08:00.000-08:002020-11-03T01:08:39.738-08:00Tomorrow<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVjZuxcNcIufFh-vsL0Ip_peA95Gv068mXmbWA95chaH3aaDBInM3ugzdgNl98cvftNayc85t01Iwlp9eB01e5F6KzdCMu1tCVbPuB0s5joWqRiZv1Fi1McaUpwT5b-9tGMVZTI4p4EsV/s800/sky9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="609" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVjZuxcNcIufFh-vsL0Ip_peA95Gv068mXmbWA95chaH3aaDBInM3ugzdgNl98cvftNayc85t01Iwlp9eB01e5F6KzdCMu1tCVbPuB0s5joWqRiZv1Fi1McaUpwT5b-9tGMVZTI4p4EsV/s320/sky9.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve prayed and I’ve
prayed. I’ve worried countless hours. In the morning I’ll cast my ballot and,
after that, will have done all I can do. After four years of horror it seems
unbelievable that things should come to a head in less than a day, but here we
are.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Across the country
businesses are boarding up, people are sealing themselves behind locked doors,
and individuals are stockpiling weapons and food. It is difficult to envision
any scenario wherein Trump’s backers are not moved to violence, whether of the
exuberant or the enraged kind, but should he lose—and please, merciful God, let
him lose—then both he and they will be incalculably worse. And then there are
those, nominally on our side, who are all too eager to torch and destroy should
the vile man remain in office. I hope each and every one who would pillage takes
the time to vote instead.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It feels like the entire
future hangs on the precipice and yet all roads lead to catastrophe anyway. I
don’t know how we got to this point. I just hope we can get past it. </span></p><p></p>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-84854269227635771512020-10-19T00:27:00.006-07:002020-10-19T00:53:33.287-07:00Borderland<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUOzMfGp3ev12Vq7UbJKg8QqaSbJIpnIQCiFzFqbcywlsVnw3HTrcbovuB-r_LPc_g3ph9xgtDgqGCaXGKFBjmMuyooE7VQFknJ_tAQk_3htT-XLCiWUoc3t7bVVoEh-imhgddWMZDfofa/s800/window4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUOzMfGp3ev12Vq7UbJKg8QqaSbJIpnIQCiFzFqbcywlsVnw3HTrcbovuB-r_LPc_g3ph9xgtDgqGCaXGKFBjmMuyooE7VQFknJ_tAQk_3htT-XLCiWUoc3t7bVVoEh-imhgddWMZDfofa/w203-h270/window4.jpg" width="203" /></a></div><p></p><p>If one word could define my life right now, that word would be "impermanence." Or maybe "unsustainable." "Precarity." "Transition." "Crisis."</p><p>Take your pick. </p><p>However you slice it, the inescapable conclusion is that I'm living in a moment which cannot persist. This is a pause at a threshold. A foot hovering above a gas pedal. An eagle-eyed crouch at the starting line. It cannot be, shouldn't be--<i>mustn't</i> <i>be</i>--a way of life.</p><p>But I don't know what replaces it. Having figured out, at least a little bit, where I am, I can't work out where I'm supposed to go. I pinned a lot of hopes on a path forward with International Organization and was overjoyed when they selected me for an interview, but all that has been placed on ice owing to the pandemic. As has, it seems, much of the world.</p><p>It is bizarre and temptingly egocentric that my personal entry into an existential waiting room has coincided with the rest of the global population doing the same thing. At least up here, things seemed to be getting better throughout the late summer and into the early fall--until, suddenly, they weren't. Until, suddenly, the sickness was everywhere. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrnyI2vt0AUgvIkHDljA0pJ3Xr2yDW57QfA8jYYk6L3bC_h0bynliLS0sTVmQ-R0E3nec5NY3hgYVXHI-XalXrOIbuBBtUhEB_LUzAcRNrLg2U6_HeUAdwn3GgsFWLRjP7xake58IdX-s/s800/valley.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="610" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrnyI2vt0AUgvIkHDljA0pJ3Xr2yDW57QfA8jYYk6L3bC_h0bynliLS0sTVmQ-R0E3nec5NY3hgYVXHI-XalXrOIbuBBtUhEB_LUzAcRNrLg2U6_HeUAdwn3GgsFWLRjP7xake58IdX-s/s320/valley.jpg" /></a></div><br /> On Monday, October 12, I returned from my lunch break around 12:30 in the afternoon--returning from my apartment, as it were, which is one of the benefits of living in the same building where you work--to find the students stuffing backpacks and slipping on jackets. <p></p><p>"What are they all doing?" I asked Mr. Coin, my newest principal.</p><p>"It's in the village," he responded, eyes dark. "The busses will be here at 1."</p><p>And then they were gone. </p><p>No one seems to know for sure when they'll come back, but the outbreak spreading in the community is clearly uncontrolled--even some of the teenagers are becoming really ill--and the inclination seems to be that we should opt for caution over quickness. We may, Mr. Coin confided, be expected to work remotely until the middle of January--which inspired a brilliant conclusion on my part followed by an equally swift moral torpedo.</p><p>"So, if we're not going to be in the classrooms until January...can I just peace out to the East Coast?" I asked. "There's not really any point to being here."</p><p>"I don't see why that would be a problem," he answered. "If the work is remote it makes no difference where you do it from. Let me ask around and I'll let you know if we're good to go."</p><p>We're not good to go.</p><p>Because even as I imagined the joys of an extended holiday homecoming--hanging out for a month with my grandmother, popping over to see my best friend and her son, surprising my sister amid the stresses of her senior year of high school--I saw the pitfalls following close behind. My grandmother is 78. Aunt Crazy, the redoubtable loon whose admonitions that "it's hard out here to be a pimp" and questionable professions of fondness for cocaine have long enlivened family gatherings, is around the same age and in poor health.</p><p>And then there's Sweet Aunt. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd3TCzRkfjwRe79uwcPUQS4tijb5AHMp8Vg9MhazOW3PUBla7bjS6_nZxwxj_NNbXTRCXfi4-TKKaZpdP4GokRfzSV5dtWZ-JDdxNBsGXQ0Qyi1MO6XoBHBO7_SA7Fiwa1Zyd5kzbmiF_s/s800/Sweet+Aunt.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd3TCzRkfjwRe79uwcPUQS4tijb5AHMp8Vg9MhazOW3PUBla7bjS6_nZxwxj_NNbXTRCXfi4-TKKaZpdP4GokRfzSV5dtWZ-JDdxNBsGXQ0Qyi1MO6XoBHBO7_SA7Fiwa1Zyd5kzbmiF_s/s320/Sweet+Aunt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Sweet Aunt, who's shown kindness to anyone she's ever known. Sweet Aunt, who turned away from an upbringing my father couldn't overcome and raised a compassionate, brilliant, hard-working son. Sweet Aunt, whose breast cancer had reached Stage 3 before they found it a month ago.<div><br /></div><div>"I'm scared," she told me by phone when we spoke recently. "The treatment they're doing is very aggressive and it's going to take a lot out of me. Your cousin came over the other day, and I thought, 'He's too young for this. Too young to have a sick mother. He shouldn't have to see this.' And it's a three-hour drive each time he makes the trip."</div><div><br /></div><div>"But don't you know," I countered. "That he wants to be there because he's such a great person? Because you raised such a good man?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"That's what Uncle Mustache said," she answered. "He asked me, 'Wouldn't you do anything for your child?'" She started to cry. "I said, 'Yes.' And he told me, 'Then you have to let him do this for you.'"</div><div><br /></div><div>I can't be the cause of any more danger befalling this queen of a woman, who even with cytotoxin flowing through her veins could think only of the child to whom she's given everything. He's an accountant now, married to a doctor. Last summer they bought their first house. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCVfGdTdm0lxahczXKAO7eMOiCd8dx-Hts-77v-5LVRmPtqubDqmEKoytn7Jgg5egbAGwzbvUBnpbMIERSLl-VzSqDlzPabaPx_lmJILiycdwVpqTCH4h4a9OcuAH7uIAgjshgX53tOnA/s750/sky8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCVfGdTdm0lxahczXKAO7eMOiCd8dx-Hts-77v-5LVRmPtqubDqmEKoytn7Jgg5egbAGwzbvUBnpbMIERSLl-VzSqDlzPabaPx_lmJILiycdwVpqTCH4h4a9OcuAH7uIAgjshgX53tOnA/s320/sky8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>The draw homeward is like a harpoon hooked right into my heart, and I can practically taste how badly I want to answer its pull. But not at that risk. Not at that cost.<div><br /></div><div>"What are you doing for Christmas?" I asked Miss Violet by telephone. "I think I'm staying in Alaska."</div><div><br /></div><div>It would be the second year in a row, though the naive version of me who existed in the autumn of 2019 couldn't have known that. I remained then because my bank account couldn't quite absorb the cost of heading back east. Now, in Viaborea, I have a well-padded wallet against which the price of a first-class ticket home is no obstacle. But other obstacles have emerged.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's hard not to see some cosmic alignment in the world being on pause when my entire life is so totally, resolutely, inescapably frozen in place. Think about it. I know that I'm almost certainly a transgender woman, but lingering doubts and the difficulties of navigating hormone therapy in so isolated an environment have stayed me from transition. I know that I need to be in an urban environment but am not sure how--or if--to break down the door into Iceport. I know that I don't want to be a teacher forever but, with my most credible alternative held up in Covid-related paralysis, haven't found another course.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've identified a slew of needed changes--that I uniformly <i>cannot act on</i>, at least not now. What gives?</div><div><br /></div><div>And the backdrop to all of this, fittingly, is the ongoing disintegration of a Republic that will receive either a qualified reprieve or a death knell in a little more than two weeks' time. A week ago, mindful of what life as a trans person and a liberal during a second Trump term might look like, I hopped into my car and drove down the highway. To the edge of a happy realm ruled by a kind queen.</div><div><br /></div><div>I knew, of course, where the border lay. Knew that place was on the other side. But I had to see it. I just had to see that it was <i>real</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUa9GTWg5sctONidlvlp2rvhTIdmBlaV1TiXOCiSQKtYKp2z41XvlDkCRHMvxSGsHCEJQU2B1TM3OcGelwh9Xiy1q_nuZIVeWgCEX0nUNijWBjHtgVB5QoxhweuzP2Oy7XqzmqcdH9NeO3/s800/border.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUa9GTWg5sctONidlvlp2rvhTIdmBlaV1TiXOCiSQKtYKp2z41XvlDkCRHMvxSGsHCEJQU2B1TM3OcGelwh9Xiy1q_nuZIVeWgCEX0nUNijWBjHtgVB5QoxhweuzP2Oy7XqzmqcdH9NeO3/s320/border.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>The boundary of these two great nations is not, incidentally, guarded on the Canadian side--go figure--and so, though I came with the intent only of peeking into Canada, I wound up blazing straight across the demarcation and into the Yukon Territory without being any the wiser. When the road signs changed to kilometers and provincial flags started waving in the wind, I got a hint that maybe something wasn't quite right.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Wait a minute, did I just...? No fucking way."</div><div><br /></div><div>If you're going to accidentally wander into another country, though, you might as well stop to take pictures, and the respective governments had conveniently provided a lovely pagoda perfect for quiet reflection. A line in the gravel--or paint on a bench--was all that separated me from a country where no one went without healthcare. Where every child who wanted could attend university. Where people like me were respected and protected. Where the government worked for its people. </div><div><br /></div><div>I knelt before that marker and clasped my hands in prayer (a habit that, doubt and temptation aside, I can't seem to quite shake).</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The day may come when I have to cross this border in a very different way,</i> I told Him. <i>For a very different reason. If it comes, please bless my journey. Please get me there swiftly. Please keep me safe.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Had you told me at any point in my childhood or adolescence that I would stand a credible chance of needing to flee my homeland as a political refugee, I would have regarded you with a slight amount of incredulity. Then again, the whole Plague-2.0 and being-a-woman things would also have thrown me for a loop, so I guess 2020 has put a lot of stuff out of whack.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSmorYVaiiIYa2JWSE0c2-JIjQ9-FHyq6u0cYFAxnLC-BnmzuG3xrXgONKyGkEmVt-VpvLGzRAwPGFKU9CrbTHRvSCueEQFlj6IUhpsLJuX-GwVJlRJJJePYQ30N-431x3vI9bp6qHFKw/s800/BB27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="601" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSmorYVaiiIYa2JWSE0c2-JIjQ9-FHyq6u0cYFAxnLC-BnmzuG3xrXgONKyGkEmVt-VpvLGzRAwPGFKU9CrbTHRvSCueEQFlj6IUhpsLJuX-GwVJlRJJJePYQ30N-431x3vI9bp6qHFKw/s320/BB27.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div>And am I woman? I don't know. I mean...more or less? I guess that's the best answer I can give. I feel like a woman (inwardly, duh). I'm pretty sure I <i>think</i> like a woman. For as long as I can remember I've idolized, emulated, aspired to, and wanted to be like, well, women. Rose DeWitt Bukater. The Pink Power Ranger. Rachel from <i>Animorphs</i>. Amelia from <i>The Princess Diaries</i>. In my youth, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and Kelly Clarkson. In my adulthood, Meghan Markle and Taylor Swift (a living goddess if ever there was one). Those were my girls. Sometimes, joining their ranks feels impossible to the point of comedy--and I, whoever the hell I am, should give up on that lest I become this contemptible she-male <i>thing</i> that repulses both genders while passing for neither. <div><br /></div><div>Toxic thoughts, I know. Not representative. Not helpful. And hormones work wonders. But the Dark Night of the Soul comes each evening like clockwork. Who among us doesn't slip into its depths from time to time?</div><div><br /></div><div>Every now and again I can't see any path forward to a happy future, and that scares me more than most things in this very scary world. How, I sometimes wonder, will it all end for me? The other night I had a dream that I again attempted suicide--not, in case anyone is worried, an item on my to-do list--and my grandmother was weeping over me.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I can't believed it happened twice," she cried. "I can't believe it happened twice!"</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm in sort of an odd place here. I have ironclad job security. A paycheck heavy enough to knock out a medium-sized child. Financial security. A clear career trajectory, at least if I stay in my current field. And yet I've seldom felt such a paucity of purpose or hope. I pray, day in and day out, that all of us get better soon. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjimcSoK5iwKwEb0o2aHgmXMwGxtCLIVCGd8SLsSowOxJcx9rqfMcHyGHIED1QfcugDQbs4FDpX5rlbfoW_HXBYjHSez25YS4UdIm0ou3TtXNzMKo-cmAQm8CRNH0mngun-PhgxNiOjWvUi/s640/sign.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjimcSoK5iwKwEb0o2aHgmXMwGxtCLIVCGd8SLsSowOxJcx9rqfMcHyGHIED1QfcugDQbs4FDpX5rlbfoW_HXBYjHSez25YS4UdIm0ou3TtXNzMKo-cmAQm8CRNH0mngun-PhgxNiOjWvUi/s320/sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-32647334049286453612020-09-30T00:45:00.001-07:002020-10-01T00:52:21.256-07:00Here<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9OBYlW9tDafUnQ_wLrLKN2Dyi4uGHVTMS8nz5tRhYPU2yny7v6hNtfQrTtHKZSUZsyKwFnVqP3bYMNTW81ho4i8e9VqWTuvG4GvOmH-CU62j-2Z2GCPdIWAgLLabg4kgMjaAWuVUH_0AU/s750/autumn.jpg" style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="750" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9OBYlW9tDafUnQ_wLrLKN2Dyi4uGHVTMS8nz5tRhYPU2yny7v6hNtfQrTtHKZSUZsyKwFnVqP3bYMNTW81ho4i8e9VqWTuvG4GvOmH-CU62j-2Z2GCPdIWAgLLabg4kgMjaAWuVUH_0AU/w320-h233/autumn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>It seems masterfully selfish, irresponsible even, to write about something as prosaic as my new place when large parts of our country are literally on fire. But I'm here. Here in Viaborea, settling into a routine, decorating my apartment, devising lessons plans and activities and, potentially, a sharp exit across the border that's ninety miles away.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Next to thoughts of <i>I wonder if the kids will like this?</i> bubble up ones like <i>You can't be like those people in Germany who waited too late to get out.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I'm watching from my Arctic perch. Painfully aware of how little I can actually do, and of how much in my own life is deeply unsettled. Soon, I'll return and tell you the story of how I got here and how things, national and personal crises aside, are playing out. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What heavy stories we're all living now.</div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-81779681450396213972020-08-01T22:30:00.004-07:002020-08-01T22:34:43.557-07:00Once Upon a Time<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMle98s48cQxYYKjTRIuS8Gt4C0ZejzX1NZ9XACP6z-mYpjiPQDQx5oBsS_v4r1yt69jc1PObP6yPYjgTLmQBxYaAM6KgEjLPkA_dJJieZ_1lRK5E08PamIq9d8_ecYFsjUs5EbY3JVx2H/s500/Zorya.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="369" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMle98s48cQxYYKjTRIuS8Gt4C0ZejzX1NZ9XACP6z-mYpjiPQDQx5oBsS_v4r1yt69jc1PObP6yPYjgTLmQBxYaAM6KgEjLPkA_dJJieZ_1lRK5E08PamIq9d8_ecYFsjUs5EbY3JVx2H/s0/Zorya.jpg" width="231" /><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In a moment between heartbeats and an instant between blinks, when my mind had released this world but not yet made it to the Dreamland, Good appeared.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Let me tell you a story, little one," she whispered, and I nodded my permission because I loved listening to her voice.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Once upon a time there was a princess who was as beautiful as dawn," she began. "Her feet were light as clouds and her skin as soft as summer rain, and wherever she turned her face there shone brilliant sunshine. So they called her Morning Star."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"What happened to her?" I asked, for even in that instant that wasn't an instant I knew no story had a happy ending.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"There was a Wolf," Good said, and that explained everything.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"It killed her," I posited.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"In a way," she said. Her blue eyes twinkled ever so faintly in the light of that place that wasn't a place and that time that wasn't a time. "But not quite. You see, the Wolf was evil, but he was a gifted mimic. He could appear as glory. Or pride. Or justice. Or pleasure. He kept his true nature concealed by living in the shadows, but because the princess was made of light he could never hide before her. In her presence, everyone saw him for what he was. He hated her for it."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I giggled at the idea of this Technicolor princess, but already a slowly seeping dread was leaking into the back of my heart for her. No one stood up to evil and got away with it. Especially when evil had good costumes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"How could she be made of light?" I asked, each syllable a shifting cadence of time and personhood, the "how" adolescent and mellow, the "light" an effusion of ten different BBs, the "she" a child's bell-clear soprano, high and filled with wonder. "Wouldn't she just float away?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Well, she wasn't made of <i>just</i> light," Good confided, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. "But her essence was light. When she was happy, she glimmered like shooting stars brought close. When she was in love, she shimmered like a field of fireflies. Like the afternoon bursting through a thundercloud. And when she was angry...you should have <i>seen</i> her. She grew brighter and brighter until it was like there were two suns in the sky. There was no shadow deep enough for the Wolf then."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"It sounds like you loved her," I observed, hugging a teddy bear that became a Walkman that became a journal that became a smartphone. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Good's eyes were a sea of blue on shimmering blue that her smile didn't quite reach.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"She was one of my best friends," she answered. "I miss her all the time."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinmUkEAi38mo8xYQZLzfPxEY54uMOxHUOQFyp4vfELGEyr660H0IKB4V8Ry5P4gw9-ZMRGOwpnALBxadkpIMCYYHIP3Kv3FAJzAquEcgja9aabhpOMtDXGq5ePMng0kxiHgtnBhkAf5U7C/s300/Danica4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="210" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinmUkEAi38mo8xYQZLzfPxEY54uMOxHUOQFyp4vfELGEyr660H0IKB4V8Ry5P4gw9-ZMRGOwpnALBxadkpIMCYYHIP3Kv3FAJzAquEcgja9aabhpOMtDXGq5ePMng0kxiHgtnBhkAf5U7C/s0/Danica4.jpg" width="165" /><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I patted her on the arm. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I'm sorry about your friend. The Wolf seems very mean. Maybe she wasn't strong enough."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"But that's just the thing," Good replied. "She was. That's why she had to be the one to confront him. The Wolf had been a problem for a while, and all of Morning Star's friends decided that only Sunlight was up to the job of banishing Shadow. So they gave the task to her. Her duty was to battle the Wolf in the plain of the heavens, binding him there so he could never break free and visit his discord upon the Earth."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"But he did," I supplied, eyes as big as saucers. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"But he did," Good agreed solemnly. "He wasn't strong enough to kill the princess, but, like her, he knew how to use magic. So one day when the princess was wounded, the Wolf used a terrible spell that he'd been saving for that exact moment. A spell that hurt her very deeply, even though she didn't die." <i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Worse. WORSE, WORSE, WORSE, WORSE. <br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Wait, Good didn't say that. Who was it, then? I guess it doesn't matter. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But maybe it was me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Then what did the spell do?" I asked.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"It imprisoned her."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"How?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSXmlpkUJ4wUyzU3mba93ec_laS6FdsYalq_yX648rmVotTMLmmNy-7V5kXI6X_Vf7NzAC3J7XlV_OkSJp3dOGjVbOSp8Zng2JSEg3xWSHoVdj-aehH7BuhwtZLyHs25u9d9y3GOjx-MQZ/s1280/sunset3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSXmlpkUJ4wUyzU3mba93ec_laS6FdsYalq_yX648rmVotTMLmmNy-7V5kXI6X_Vf7NzAC3J7XlV_OkSJp3dOGjVbOSp8Zng2JSEg3xWSHoVdj-aehH7BuhwtZLyHs25u9d9y3GOjx-MQZ/s640/sunset3.jpg" width="330" /><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Good wiped her fingers beneath her eyelids and paused for a long moment.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"He made her forget who she was," she said finally. "And put her in a world where no one would understand her. Where she was no longer beautiful or powerful or terrible. At least not in the same ways. And he set two little wolves to guard her, just as she had guarded him. 'If she ever starts to remember,' he told them. 'Rip at her with the fangs I gave you, until she can think of nothing but your teeth and her fear.' Each bite pierced a little piece of her spirit. If they bit hard enough and long enough, he hoped, maybe they'd be able to bite her soul right out of her. What threat would she be then?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Well," I shook my head with my lips pressed together. "You might want to forget about your friend, because it sounds like he really offed her."<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Good's laughter brought some of the hope back into the world and made me hear, as it always did, the faint ring of wind chimes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"You know, I don't tend to write people off," she answered, her face transformed for a second by a mischievous grin. "And in any case, the princess had three things going for her. Strengths the Wolf couldn't take away, and that he was hoping she wouldn't learn how to use before he got loose of the chain she'd used to tie him to the stars."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"What were they?" I queried. I hadn't exactly been sold on this burning-princess thing at the outset, but Good was a total drama queen and she knew how to drive home a pitch. I was hooked.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLg0u4w8c1gyVYTetzU5F_84o69fEZdbv67t__yphikTmQ0Gef7NWFFwefAYnUdaSoO4nFIBvnPbqa-QwOJVB2F_2s9ioHDfOSdd5nF7FpJNmQNIlYcq0Q85pNcEwtaJz22oaF8ZZ6npi/s723/Danica5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="723" data-original-width="500" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLg0u4w8c1gyVYTetzU5F_84o69fEZdbv67t__yphikTmQ0Gef7NWFFwefAYnUdaSoO4nFIBvnPbqa-QwOJVB2F_2s9ioHDfOSdd5nF7FpJNmQNIlYcq0Q85pNcEwtaJz22oaF8ZZ6npi/s640/Danica5.jpg" width="189" /><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"One," Good elaborated, raising a finger for theatrical effect. "She had a magical pen. Not one she could carry. But one deep inside. One that was part of her blood and her heart and her whole being. It made her a storyteller, even in this realm that was so foreign to her. And few people are more powerful than storytellers."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I nodded. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Two," she continued. "She had a grandmother who loved her. And believed in her. And armored her in books and kisses and chocolate-chip cookies."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I guffawed at that one.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"How could a grand ma help you against an evil wolf with magic powers?" I shot with a cocked eyebrow. "No offense or anything. But I have a grand ma who does all that stuff and I've never caught her fighting any wolves."<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Good stared at me for a long moment before enveloping me in a hug that felt like the heat from a summertime camp fire. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Oh, but BB," she whispered. "There is no greater defense against the wolves of the world than a grandmother and her chocolate-chip cookies. This is one of those things you don't understand yet. You just have to trust me on it. Okay?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I looked up at her careworn face with my eyes that were two, or maybe twelve, or maybe twenty-two years old, and I agreed. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"And three," Good finished. "Her magic was stronger than the Wolf's. Even with making her forget, and with putting her in that terrible place, and with sending his own wolves to hurt her, he knew he could only delay the time when she would come for him. One day, the sunrise inside her would grow so big and so bright and so wonderful that she would wake up. Remember it all."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I guess that Wolf's really in for it then," I noted. "She's probably gonna be pissed."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Wind chimes and gentle glinting tears. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I think you're right, BB."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"So when do you think that'll be?" I asked. "You know--when is she going to wake up?"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Good surveyed me evenly and then cast a glance to the edge of the void, where the faintest glimpse of dawn was spilling over the horizon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I guess whenever she's ready."<br /></div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-27565758959575027342020-07-31T20:51:00.004-07:002020-07-31T20:51:53.315-07:00Thresholds<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpLnNXYijc6pIF08fl6-_FFw7GpDSrJAXfwKobzVnu2TqsDtuZoVHeeO3VdmXQunKkAUgTnCC0CV8Ayl3Wyqgn-go7lR8mc8tbxOa28eXENuUAXNzmaJEboXM6XFxLSJc5h1ljdDbZ-lh/s800/house6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="605" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpLnNXYijc6pIF08fl6-_FFw7GpDSrJAXfwKobzVnu2TqsDtuZoVHeeO3VdmXQunKkAUgTnCC0CV8Ayl3Wyqgn-go7lR8mc8tbxOa28eXENuUAXNzmaJEboXM6XFxLSJc5h1ljdDbZ-lh/w304-h402/house6.jpg" width="221" /><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've crossed so many thresholds</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And closed so many doors</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've dragged so many packaged lives</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Across so many floors</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've glimpsed so many phantoms</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've dreamed so many dreams</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A teasing taste of what could be</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Under unchanging eaves</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've seen arrays of beauty</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And cities burning bright</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've toasted over golden isles</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Imbibed the Third Rome's light</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've seen the sky burn emerald</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On cold thousand-star nights<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From my steps I watched the mighty</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yukon turn to ice</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Each place becomes a capsule</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Each pane a frozen line</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Each to be traded in its turn</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For none of them are mine</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A tenant of existence</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In rented roles I find</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">While seeking over compass points</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One door to stay behind<br /></div>BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-59885032057531190022020-07-25T19:18:00.000-07:002020-07-25T19:26:36.578-07:00Between<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2rWFeDQYot_Q3ts_2c1WFyurWwo6ggqT2mYDzn_PjEKuz9Gqtgi0tVXoVKETZnnLSbBZuF-72PACPTBy6yFgtrFvzGvWOSevlbKecvwa-Uky6FUbQj-vR8W9Rxt74hDRg-pZbxAFKFJoc/s1600/marsh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2rWFeDQYot_Q3ts_2c1WFyurWwo6ggqT2mYDzn_PjEKuz9Gqtgi0tVXoVKETZnnLSbBZuF-72PACPTBy6yFgtrFvzGvWOSevlbKecvwa-Uky6FUbQj-vR8W9Rxt74hDRg-pZbxAFKFJoc/s320/marsh.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This summer has been one of the moments when it feels like the whole world is holding its breath, hasn't it? Our country is ravaged by disease, torn by political division, savaged and beaten and gasping with blows from secret police. Right here. In America. We told ourselves it could never come and that, if it did, we'd rise up in heroic rebellion like our Founders. Banners flying and blades gleaming.<br />
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Instead, a few of us have risen up. But a little under half of us have justified it, rationalized it, dismissed that it's as big a threat as it seems, or even outright embraced it as something we've wanted for a long time. We're learning now who would have supported the Nazis early in their rise. It's our aunts. Our friends. Our neighbors. Our grandmothers. People we never would have expected. People who seemed so nice.<br />
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"They shouldn't have rioted. They're getting what they deserve."<br />
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What to do with that?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzOLiKD1QjHF7jXTm1R0XYv-oYGmxOtBLo1Bi578nduu1YAfx-8WW3DuBVQDdNPqLXdw5WHlhOEmqo5LzNfN4__2_7A1IwSseA8973vSG5Djk4pUdNlfpmkRaWahYmgeW7fVLJsYI5_LYC/s1600/sky6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzOLiKD1QjHF7jXTm1R0XYv-oYGmxOtBLo1Bi578nduu1YAfx-8WW3DuBVQDdNPqLXdw5WHlhOEmqo5LzNfN4__2_7A1IwSseA8973vSG5Djk4pUdNlfpmkRaWahYmgeW7fVLJsYI5_LYC/s320/sky6.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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It all reminds me vaguely of Russia. Beginning in the late Soviet era there was an unspoken agreement that, so long as they did nothing to oppose the state, ordinary people could live their lives in peace, and that bargain has endured into the present Russian Federation. No one discusses politics there. At all. The sharp absence of that topic is one of the most striking things a visitor notices when moving even in highly educated circles, but the Russians have compensated. They develop intricate, rich personal worlds, and that is where they live their lives.</div>
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So this summer, I turned in. </div>
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Lost myself in beauty and pleasure and friendship and reflection. Rekindled the loving embers of old friendships, fed logs of camaraderie into relatively new ones, and decided, in a moment of hurtful clarity, to let an ancient one slip away into the wind. I've known him since I was eighteen, and I don't let people go easily. But it was time. Some people, as Black Dress Girl recently told me, are ships in the night. But some sail beside you for years. Decades. What feels like it will be forever, until one day you look at the coordinates and realize you'll cross over different horizons.</div>
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Relationships have been at the heart of my thought process lately. After all, a corollary to "Who am I?" is "Who will love me?" Maybe it's my age. A biological clock, if a thing like that can exist for a man. A man. Ha. Is that what I am? A natural part of the transgender experience is vacillation between heady self-assurance and cratering self-doubt. "I am a strong woman (who should start hormones)" on the one hand and "I am batshit insane" on the other. But whatever I am, the part of me that melts when faced with puppies and babies; the part that enjoyed, even when I was a child, taking care of those younger than me, has of late been fairly well occupied with thoughts of domesticity. </div>
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Is it just the old loneliness becoming particularly acute? Thirty-two years is an awfully long time to go with only one Gavril to break up the solitude. Which has always been the issue with me; I'm a sparkling conversationalist, a lively wit, a vibrant extrovert who moves from one professional success to another, amassing money and adventures and friends and doing it all with a profound sorrow nestled inside. A hole in my heart that should be filled by...what? Who? Not that I expect a man to solve all my problems. Wise Woman was right when she said that you're best able to be a partner when you're satisfied being alone. But having someone to come home to would make the nakedness of the sky feel a lot less crushing. </div>
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This loneliness is so prodigious, so warping, that I sometimes wonder if an honest assessment of my personality and gender can even occur in the face of it. The last year or so of my life has been confused on that end, and in all of my ruminations on masculinity and femininity the only conclusion I've arrived at for sure is that a final decision will need to wait until I am in a settled and supportive environment. Happily, I am closer to that, though there are a few destinations at which I could actually arrive and none of them is yet a clear frontrunner.</div>
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The possibilities are three.</div>
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Way back in October 2019 I applied for a job with International Organization, then was informed in January that I'd advanced through the extremely selective application process and been invited to an in-person interview in Marble City in March. The coronavirus intervened, of course, and that interview, while still guaranteed, has been indefinitely postponed.</div>
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"You know," one of my mentors in the organization told me. "You could apply for the domestic branch of I.O. The work is similar but it's all based in the U.S., so the hiring criteria are a lot looser. That's a second foot in the door."</div>
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And now, many months later, I've made the roster of I.O.'s domestic hiring database. A job in this field would take me back to the Southern State region, let me do rewarding research and communications work, and open countless other professional doors. </div>
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Then there's the third option: just staying in Arctic State.</div>
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"That's not a bad gig at all," I told Miss Violet, a teaching colleague who became a fast friend. She visited me in person later in the summer, but on this occasion we were on the phone as I paced about my cavernous kitchen. "I could get my special education certification and move to Iceport. And there's so much room to move up in Arctic State. Eventually I could make my way to a principalship and earn a ton of money. There could be a really rewarding career up there. It's high wage and low pressure. I mean, who gets to have that? It's not something to casually turn away from."</div>
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"Right," she answered. "And the important thing is that you have good options. Even if you go to work for I.O. and decide you don't like it, Arctic State is still going to be there."</div>
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"And I just got my five-year certification, too. So I have some flexibility to leave even for a couple of years and then jump right back in."</div>
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"Mm-hm."</div>
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What is absolutely undeniable is that my internal exile must end. I wouldn't exactly call this a cry for help, but I'm hurting. Most days are open wounds, and what keeps me going is knowing that the way I'm living now has an expiration date. Even if I am closer to civilization this time 'round.</div>
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You see, my new job, in the little village of Via Borea, does something that none of my other Arctic State positions have done: it connects me to the state highway system. Iceport might be seven hours away and Aurora City over a mountain, but both are there. If it ever gets to be too much, I can hop in the car and go. That was never on the table before.</div>
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For right now, it's enough. In about eight months' time, though, I have decided that I will be doing one of two things: preparing for a job with I.O. or beginning a certification program that will allow me to move to Iceport in the fall of 2021. Man or woman, teacher or public liaison, BB or Starlight, I burn too bright to hide away in the dark. And I can't long endure it. </div>
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It's the damnedest thing. For years I dreamed of independence and of money, and then both came in spades only to carry this terrible catch. I have, to be frank, a lot of shit to figure out, and the bizarre trajectory of an adulthood that launched me straight from my mother's house to the ends of the Earth is facilitating that figuring-out inadequately.</div>
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Things may never be totally "normal" for me. Iceport would be more or less conventional (if cold), but a career with I.O. would likely be nomadic and involve a life lived across several continents. Both, though, offer the opportunity of membership in actual communities, however strange the context, and my hope is that a lot of stubborn puzzle pieces will begin to fall into place once that's achieved. It's a step I've long needed to take, and I'm eager to initiate it.</div>
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My life, my proper life, deserves to begin.</div>
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BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-7552913850688727952020-04-19T23:30:00.000-07:002020-04-20T02:21:37.985-07:00Reflections on Thirty-Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On April 10 I turned thirty-two years old, entering the third year of a decade that has so far been defined by professional success, personal growth, and lengthening tendrils of discovery splaying around me like the petals of some miraculous flower. The contrast with my besieged twenties couldn't be starker, and as the distance from that time grows the narrative of my life has had to shift with it. When you met me I defined myself, understandably, in terms of opposition. I wouldn't be like my parents. Wouldn't be like my bullies. I wouldn't be like all those toxic actors who had power over me.<br />
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They don't have power anymore.<br />
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These days I'm calling my own shots, and as I've gotten more used to that--as I've come to realize that independence is not a parlor trick ready to vanish with the pulling of a curtain--I've begun to gradually shift from a mindset of survival to one of growth. Saying, "I'm so different from the people who hurt me" is not enough anymore. More and more, the question is, "Who am I?" Me on my own. Me not in juxtaposition to somebody else, but as a freestanding entity.<br />
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Thirty-two has been lovely, but the memory of turning thirty is something I'll savor for the rest of my life. When I was in my middle twenties, fresh off a suicide attempt, pudgy from my depression-induced binge-eating, ashamed and undermined by my depression-induced binge-drinking, living on other people's dime and at their whim, thirty was a mantra. By thirty, I'd have a career. By thirty I'd have money. By thirty I'd be on my own. By thirty I'd be, I swore, under 150 pounds again.<br />
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My thirtieth birthday dawned in sun-soaked Alaska springtime, a blazing-bright morning that greeted me with confetti and celebratory phone calls. On my front door was a colorful constellation of birthday cards made by students and staff, under the supervision of Wise Woman, a good friend who lived next door to my beautiful apartment. I was surrounded by love and validation. Right after I woke up, I stood on the scale on my living room and the number that flashed back at me read 149.4 pounds. I stood in my foyer that morning, surveying my life, and I wept tears of disbelief and joy.<br />
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"It all happened. It all actually happened." Somewhere deep down, I never really believed I'd get to have it. But I did. And I do.<br />
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In the two years since the bright sunrise of thirty, I've worked to discover the grown-up BB, and that effort has taken me to some surprising places. To several corners of Alaska. To Russia. To my first relationship (with Gavril, who was nothing short of saintly in the face of my unrelenting tide of craziness and damage). To the acknowledgement, at long last, that whatever I am, I am not quite a regular boy.<br />
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"You know, it doesn't need to be one thing or another," said Raven, a mother of one of my students and someone with whom I grew close enough to confide my struggles with identity. Raven is an Athabascan Native steeped in the culture of her people, and her conception of gender doesn't exactly align with the Western binary. "We have a word for people like you: two-spirit."<br />
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I considered that. That maybe all this wasn't quite as simple as a pink baby popping out in blue wrapping.<br />
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"Did you know at all?" I asked. "You don't seem surprised."<br />
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"Well..." she paused and gave me an apologetic smile. "Little things. Your body language. Not everyone would pick up on it, but if you're intuitive...there's subtle cues."<br />
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I don't have all the answers, which is fine provided I'm looking for them in an honest way. If there is any resolution I carry forward with me into the third year of my thirties, it is to walk and to think and to choose without fear. That has entailed some really uncomfortable moments, as when last week I spoke with my therapist about how my stepmother Marie treated me in childhood.<br />
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"She's been texting me," I told the doctor. "And I don't know how to respond. I haven't spoken with her in months, intentionally, and I know this is her way of trying but I have so much pain around her..."<br />
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"Why is that?"<br />
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The familiar red flags raised. That same old dread in my stomach, screaming at me to RUN AWAY FROM THIS THOUGHT. I fought through the fight-or-flight response and at last said what I've been dancing around with this therapist for literally months (and with myself for literally years): "Marie didn't have appropriate boundaries around us. She used to talk about our sexuality in these really explicit and degrading terms."<br />
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I still have a vivid memory of being eighteen and my stepmother counseling, in the cutting way she had, all the things I needed to do lest I "never get laid."<br />
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"It wasn't the only instance," I told Gender Therapist. "That particular time we had company over who heard the whole thing and...I was eighteen. To be sexualized at that age, by a parent no less, and then to be turned into a sexual object for appraisal. For strangers' amusement. It's like..." I started crying. "It was so dehumanizing. And it makes me really upset to remember."<br />
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The spectre of Marie has loomed like a boogeyman of shame in the back of my mind. Now I know she's there. Now I can work on banishing her. Confronting her presence, and the way it's tied up in my issues around intimacy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, is one of those things I found too frightening to do in my twenties. But fear-based decisions are wrong decisions.<br />
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The solutions are seldom easy, but they are sometimes funny.<br />
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"I think I need to be more of a ho," I mentioned.<br />
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"From a clinical perspective, I'd have to agree," confirmed Gender Therapist.<br />
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I've never really experienced male sexuality, you see; other than a few abortive and unpleasant encounters spread over about a decade, I'd never had a sexual partner until Gavril in 2018, and Gender Therapist and I both feel that I would be remiss to undertake something as huge as transition without knowing exactly what I'd be walking away from. There's always going to be a girl living in this head of mine. But is she splitting the rent with a boy? And might I be able to find happiness in gay manhood? I'm doing my level best to get to the bottom of it (giggity), trawling dating and kink sites and, again, casting fear (though not caution) aside.<br />
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"I love it," Black Dress Girl said. "Let the freak flag fly. This is exactly what you need."<br />
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This new online presence has resulted, to my surprise, in a consistent stream of messages from college-aged gay men who tell me I'm beautiful and generally express a desire to see me unclothed. This is something I feel I should be bothered by but I can't quite get myself across the line of caring.<br />
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"I felt really bad about it at first," I confided to Black Dress Girl by phone. "A lot of these guys are like ten years younger than me. I mean, it's not like I'm lying about my age; I have my photo online and people just make assumptions. I always correct them. But then I'm like, 'I can't do this. I'm too old. It's wrong.' And finally I just snapped. I was like, '<i>Why</i> can't I do this? Why is my entire life me telling myself all the things I'm not allowed to do?' He wants it and I want it, too, but I'm in denial about wanting it because I feel like I <i>shouldn't</i> want it. And at some point it's like, 'For fuck's sake.' If he thinks I'm hot and I think he's hot and everyone is going in eyes wide open...I just want to get laid."<br />
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"Well, when you actually were that age you didn't get to have those carefree experiences," she reasoned. "Because you just had so much going on. And they're talking to you because they find you attractive. So as long as you're not leading them into thinking you're going to have a relationship or anything...like, everyone is a consenting adult. If they know it's just sex, what's the issue?"<br />
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All of which could wind up being hypothetical, by the way. But giving myself permission to bang a twenty-one-year-old for the sheer joy of a good shagging, and, what's more, being open to that joy absent the need for a relationship, is a step I never thought I'd take. The idea of sex as a fun and pleasurable experience? Something that isn't terrifying? Who knew?<br />
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<br />
First do no harm. Always. But I'm tired of apologizing and of self-denial. I want to <i>live</i>.<br />
<br />
I'm leaving Point Goldlace next month and not coming back, because I know that I deserve better than the opportunities and the treatment I'm getting here. I'm interviewing, at some point when quarantine restrictions are lifted, for a job with an international organization that would require me to live on a semi-permanent basis outside of the U.S. And I'm moving in August to a different part of Alaska where I'll once again be the new person in town. All of these are scary things and in each case it would have been easier and less anxiety-provoking to just maintain the status quo. But fear-based decisions are wrong decisions.<br />
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I'm making plans and backup plans, as I always do. This summer, if the service that provides it isn't shuttered due to contagion concerns, I'll be taking classical voice lessons through a university in Southern State. I've wanted to for years and...why not? Singing is pure joy. I've taken to posting audio in online voice forums where I've learned, among other things, that I am in fact considered not a baritone but a lyric tenor. Go figure.<br />
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At thirty-two I want to push further from fear and pull closer to my happy place, wherever that is. And whoever I am as I arrive there.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-46793036966260799252020-04-08T23:30:00.000-07:002020-04-09T01:07:21.523-07:00Twelve Years<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Has twelve years ever been so vast? The world in which this blog started, on April 7, 2008, by and large no longer exists. That spring, we were in the midst of a conventional presidential primary process ahead of an election that, the 2008 financial crisis still being months away, seemed competitive. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were holding substantive debates to determine which of them would carry the Democratic standard. Schools and businesses and government offices were open. People walked the streets. The stock market hummed along. I was all of nineteen.</div>
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That boy vanished, alongside the rest. Though maybe he's still around in spirit. And twelve years later we're living in a reality that has, across many dimensions, defied expectations of what seemed plausible. At moments it feels like the plot of a science-fiction movie, doesn't it? Or maybe an especially exhausting political thriller.</div>
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But thirteen years will come, and then fourteen, and then fifteen, and at some point we'll go back to "normal," hopefully a version of normal informed by the shortcomings this crisis exposed (though increasingly I have little hope my countrymen operate in a learning-from-mistakes kind of way).</div>
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In the meantime, I'm still BB, a thirty-one-year-old teacher living in Alaska and plotting his next move. I didn't do one of these last year--life, as it will, got in the way--so it would seem some updates are required.</div>
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My father David and stepmother Marie live on the East Coast and have both remarried since their divorce in 2014. My birth-mother, Anne, is there as well, as are all my siblings: twenty-four-year-old Thomas, a college student who's earned straight As every semester while pursuing a certificate in the medical field; sixteen-year-old Pie, a high school junior who's not so little anymore and now has a license; and thirty-year-old Powell, who's recently moved into a larger home with his girlfriend of several years. </div>
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Whether I'll see them this summer, whether that's safe, is still up in the air. This year has already thrown many unexpected twists my way, and like everyone else I'm waiting to see what happens. Here's how it's been so far:</div>
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<b>April 2019:</b> Shortly after a signing a contract to remain one more year in Point Goldlace, I turn 31 years old.</div>
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<b>May 2019:</b> I depart Point Goldlace for the East Coast, where happy reunions with my grandmother and friends occur.</div>
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<b>June 2019: </b><a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2019/09/an-untitled-chapter.html">Off to Russia</a>, where new friends and experiences abound during my three weeks living in a Moscow flat and attending Russian-language classes at a university in the city.</div>
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<b>July 2019:</b> Back to the U.S. at month's end, where some precious weeks of summer yet remain.</div>
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<b>August 2019:</b> I return to Point Goldlace for a second consecutive school year (the first time I've ever been a returning teacher anywhere).</div>
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<b>September 2019:</b> Considerations of gender weigh heavily, and I confront the fact that I am very likely transgender.</div>
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<b>October 2019:</b> I begin seeing a gender therapist to help me sort through feelings on identity, sexuality, and gender, all of which proves a great deal more nuanced than expected. The nuance is tough, but confronting it is helpful. In Aurora City, I begin the application process for a non-education job I've wanted a <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2015/10/into-goldlands.html">very long time</a>.</div>
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<b>November 2019:</b> As a second Thanksgiving in Point Goldlace rolls around, I am forced into honest reflection on my ability to remain in this community.</div>
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<b>December 2019:</b> A bid to save money results in my spending Christmas in Iceport, but what could have been a gloomy holiday is brightened up by the presence of Wise Woman and Miss Violet, both of whom travel from within Alaska to spend time with me at an Airbnb in the city.</div>
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<b>January 2020:</b> The Twenties begin, and with them come the first vague reports of a mysterious pneumonia-like illness in China. Three days after the New Year, I receive an e-mail telling me I've been invited to an in-person job interview on the East Coast.</div>
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<b>February 2020:</b> I make the difficult decision that I will not return to Point Goldlace after the end of the current school year. I begin an active search for employment.</div>
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<b>March 2020:</b> I sign a contract with a new school district despite an offer of renewal for a third year from Point Goldlace. The world shuts down, and my East Coast interview is postponed for the time being.</div>
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A year from now, I hope we're safer. Healthier. Wiser. And I wish you all a renewing spring.</div>
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BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-52557681908264888942020-03-31T23:30:00.000-07:002020-04-04T21:58:44.800-07:00On Hold<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was supposed to be on a plane headed to the East Coast when it happened. First it was a few deaths at a nursing home in Seattle. Then the emergence of some cases in New York. Then local hospitals filled to capacity. New clusters emerging every day. One state after another, including Alaska, shuttering its schools and directing teachers to work from home. The shelter-in-place order, which seemed radical in the moment, coming in California, then in New York, then in Illinois. Over the weekend we got our own such mandate up here in the Arctic.<br />
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The preceding several weeks had seen me managing job applications and interviews, some within education and some without, and I was preparing for easily the most important meeting of my life when an e-mail from the employer appeared on my smartphone screen. For the safety of the applicants, interviews had been postponed indefinitely, but everyone who had earned a slot would still retain it for when things returned to normal. Whenever that was.<br />
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I'd already taken leave from work for a trip that wasn't going to happen, so I called my boss, cancelled the time off, and enjoyed an unscheduled spring break in Aurora City, eating sushi and ordering coffee and watching free cable TV as the news from the outside world grew ever more ominous. More than once, I looked out from my top-floor hotel suite and wondered if the virus was already moving in the streets below me. Each day delivered a news item that managed to make me cry.<br />
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And when I returned to Point Goldlace, it wasn't to a regular work environment after all; it was to a two-week quarantine, under the terms of which I'm still housebound. I expected to resume my regular schedule on April 6, but today came word that we'd be permitted to perform our duties remotely, reporting to school perhaps once a week to print necessary items.<br />
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As to what the next couple of months of my life looks like, I honestly don't know. The dirty secret of education right now is that the actual amount of things we can do without students is limited, and all of us are essentially just putting together substitute plans. The work of an entire week takes me an hour or two, and after that "working from home" means a lot of Internet and a lot of reading. Is this supposed to be how we exist until the end of May? And what comes then? Do I fly home to a diseased East Coast? Do I visit family? Is that even safe? What does a summer look like without freedom?<br />
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I'm leaving Point Goldlace at the end of this school year, but haven't yet informed our district administration. It's another one of those things that's fallen by the wayside in light of everything falling by the wayside.<br />
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I hope you're all healthy and safe. And I hope it all comes out right.<br />
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<br />BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-49539316379160252592020-01-01T18:53:00.001-08:002020-01-01T18:53:11.667-08:00In Brightness and Shadow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Wishing you all a happy dawn to the decade. May we each find our best selves in the Twenties now begun.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-54931275312363806422019-12-31T18:08:00.000-08:002019-12-31T18:09:08.492-08:00An Ending at a Crossroads<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So much gone before. So much yet coming.<br />
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I hope each of you had more joys than regrets in the decade that will pass tonight, and that each of you has fruitful paths down which to walk in the decade soon to begin.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-60883028172323124252019-11-30T15:38:00.000-08:002019-12-01T17:02:15.657-08:00The Wild's Twisted Mirror<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Someone with a past like mine should not spend so much time alone.<br />
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When I'm with people, occupied, swept along in the hustle and bustle that is work, social engagements, shopping, dinners, errands, exercise, reading, family, then I'm good. When I get to live life the way a normal person lives life, I am in general a happy and pleasant individual. Which is remarkable, all things considered. Scroll through the archives of this blog and try not to weep at what you find there. Domestic violence. Suicide. Vicious and unrelenting abuse. It was a miracle that I got through all of that more or less intact, got to the point that I could be an agreeable link in a chain of friendship and kin, a typical member of a typically functioning social circle. More or less, a regular dude (or girl, but the point stands).<br />
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About a decade ago, I did my <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2009/12/first-blogger-meetup.html">first blogger meetup</a> as a college student in the Washington, DC region, and the writer with whom I met expressed a surprised assessment of my character.<br />
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"From your writing, I expected you to be really serious and reserved," he quipped at the time. "But you're actually like, a normal person."<br />
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Genuinely one of my greatest achievements in life has been to become "actually like, a normal person." It's why I revel in my Starbucks and my Taylor Swift records and my completely indefensible love for Twilight. By all rights I should be a raving lunatic, or barring that a fashionably tortured Gothic misanthrope. Instead I'm a comically typical white girl, cheerful and good natured, like, as one co-worker playfully noted "a little ball of sunshine." Except when I'm alone.<br />
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Then old wounds open up. Old shames breathe. And pervasive insecurities whisper in my ear, of all the things I'll never have and never be able to do. There's so much to worry about these days. Whether or not to transition, then how to bear the cost of it if I go that route. Which direction to take to further my career, and whether I'll be equal to the task. How, how in the name of the sweet Lord above, to get out of this village, where I feel trapped: the robust salary and low-pressure working conditions I command here come at the price of social isolation, but to reclaim a more typical life would be to surrender a hard-won economic position that very, very few teachers enjoy.<br />
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Alaska teacher pay, even in a city, would allow me to live at least a middle-class existence, but those city jobs are difficult to come by. Everyone wants to work in Iceport or Aurora City. So what's a boy to do? The prospective options--teaching job here, teaching job in another village, teaching job in a city, non-teaching job in a city--for next year are manifold with conflicting and interlocking time-frames, all of which is to say nothing of my long-term ambitions to enter a very specific career path within the federal government. It's all just so much. Through the maelstrom of deadlines and pressure and logistics I can see a glimmer of a happy future worth living in, but it seems so far off sometimes.<br />
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I'm going to be spending two weeks in Iceport during Christmas break (something I've elected to do en lieu of a very expensive Yuletide trip to the East Coast) and at least a few things will be acted on then. I have a job interview with a group home for troubled kids sometime around the New Year, and I'll also be meeting with a psychiatrist to get a clinical evaluation that could be my foot in the door with the federal government. Granted, I have yet to find that psychiatrist, but still.<br />
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"I can see you've applied for an overseas position," said the federal coordinator to whom I'd been assigned. "But there are domestic positions that are subject to non-competitive hiring processes for individuals with disabilities, and that could be a quicker and smoother path for you. Why don't we get that started? Then we have two irons on the fire and they can proceed simultaneously."<br />
<br />
This could potentially be a godsend; I've harbored dreams to embark upon this very specific job track within the federal government for about a decade now, but the barrier to entry is high and the selection process rigorous. A workaround exists in the form of what is called Schedule-A hiring, a non-competitive hiring process in which qualified persons with disabilities are considered in a pool by themselves, apart from the population of general applicants. I am absolutely eligible to do this, but require a letter from a physician to verify the legitimacy of my status.<br />
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Hence why I am now searching Iceport for a doctor to confirm the ailment with which I was first diagnosed at three years old and which has altered, in profound and almost universally negative ways, every aspect of my life. It's stressful and aggravating, but if it helps me climb this particular wall then it will be worth it.<br />
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<br />
Otherwise, I'm going to just enjoy being normal for a fortnight. I've rented an apartment in Iceport for the greater part of the break, and I'm very much looking forward to such exciting adventures as grabbing coffee, going to the movies, and grocery shopping. With a car! Wise Woman, my neighbor from Gori who now lives in a village on Alaska's west coast, is flying to the city to spend four nights and days with me, among them Christmas itself; and Miss Violet, a teacher who lived in Point Goldlace last year but has since relocated to Iceport, is hosting us for Christmas dinner. My father will be up for a few days as well, somewhere between Christmas and New Year's.<br />
<br />
Other than that, the time is mine. Hopefully somewhere in the twinkle of Christmas lights and the flash of New Year's Eve fireworks, a little ball of sunshine can emerge again.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-71272902368924701802019-10-31T23:54:00.001-07:002019-11-01T00:07:26.237-07:00Who?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It's been a weird few months.<br />
<br />
I guess, in honesty, it's been a weird few years, and what's more the first years of my life that have ever truly been mine. My twenties were a vortex in which all I could do was survive, and even on that count I fell terribly, tragically short on a dark day six Octobers ago. There was no time for self-examination. Instead I plodded on, dutifully doing absolutely whatever I had to do to stand on my own two feet and thinking of little else until, after more than a decade of whirlwind conflict, achievement, and despair, I found myself, all of a sudden, alone in Alaska. I really couldn't even process it.<br />
<br />
For so long there'd been nothing but struggle. I was, to use an educator's parlance, seeing only to my physiological and safety needs. And then when the offer to come here arrived, it was so unexpected that the journey began seemingly without my initiating it. A job prospect in Southern State had fallen through in February and with three months left in the spring semester I found that a teaching position in Alaska, for which I'd interviewed basically on a lark, looked a lot more attractive than it had a few days earlier. I switched my bank accounts, packed up my life, and landed in Iceport three weeks later. My government housing on the tundra was the first home I'd ever lived in that was mine.<br />
<br />
I did weirdly well in rural Alaska, better frankly than most other people, and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it was the dysfunction of my own childhood, or awareness of my own shortcomings, but the deeply strange and often difficult dynamic in the villages was something I didn't have much trouble dealing with, even if the social isolation got me down.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2017/03/landed-in-north.html">That first assignment</a>, in White Venice, didn't last long. The lack of running water was a bridge too far for me, and White Venice was in several ways just not my cup of tea. Instead I wound up spending an eventful--and at times heartbreaking--<a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2017/11/onward-and-onward.html">year in Gori</a>, where I lived in a beautiful little apartment next to a big-hearted woman with deep compassion and open ears. And I had time to sit still.<br />
<br />
That's a remarkable thing when you've never had it, and it leads your mind to places it wouldn't--or wouldn't dare--otherwise go. I was twenty-nine and working late at the school one night the first time I logged onto a trans chat room under an assumed name. Which is not to say I'd never acknowledged the thoughts before. Once, years earlier, I confessed to a therapist that I always felt I should have been born a girl but that one had to be pragmatic and that I'd make my best go of it as a gay man. Said that blithely. Like living an entire lifetime in disguise would be as mundane as going for a walk through the park. I was twenty-four then. By twenty-nine a lot of things felt different.<br />
<br />
I found myself poring over memories, reliving and dissecting all of the forbidden thoughts and elements of myself that I'd worked so hard to hide during my adolescence. The female role-playing in games of make-believe with my brother. The cheerleading routines in the front yard. The daydreams about marrying a boy from my third-grade class, which must have been wrong because they featured me in a <i>dress</i> up on a sunny hill with him smiling at my side. I felt so perverse when I indulged that fantasy, but couldn't help returning to the thought. And then there was the time I was nine, when I realized that the voice and the face in my head were both female, and the shock of shame and alarm that sent through me. I had to fix it. I had to make it right.<br />
<br />
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<br />
So I tried. I practiced walking like a boy. I drilled myself into talking without my hands, lowering my voice, reconfiguring my mindset, adjusting my daydreams to make their star male--young and elegant and vulnerable, feminine in every way that counted, but somehow male. I worked to make myself less of what I was. And to a really awful degree I succeeded, because here I am, thirty-one, unsure of who I am or where I belong or what's authentic.<br />
<br />
"I've always felt female inside," I said during a recent conversation with my therapist, whom I'm able to chat with by phone in light of my unusual living circumstances. "But when I think of actually acting on it, the next thought is, 'You're insane.' I mean, I've been in this male body for thirty-one years. It just seems so out there. Like, 'Are you seriously thinking this? This can't be real.' I just don't know who I am. And I feel like a fraud."<br />
<br />
"You know," she said. "That's really common."<br />
<br />
My therapists, my friends, my confidants, my rivals, my peers--everyone, it seems, save my lovers--have been women or girls. I never really thought about why; it just seemed natural. Which is not to say I don't have male friends, but they've been a lot fewer and farther between. Women just seemed to understand me better, and I them.<br />
<br />
"You're like a girl," one of them sneered at me in second grade. "A prissy one."<br />
<br />
You're telling me, honey. You're telling me.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The fact that I've long been a natural caretaker has not made any of this easier, and has caused me anxiety in adulthood as my behavior and my sex seem increasingly out of alignment. As a teacher I'm nurturing, compassionate, funny, fair, firm when needed. Some of the kids make me melt. More than once, I've looked at a few of those in deepest pain and wished I could take them home with me, even though there's no way that's possible. One day last school year an eighth-grade girl slipped up and called me "Mom" in front of the entire World Geography class. We all laughed at it, none louder than me--"Honey, you're so confused," I quipped, to more gales of giggles--but that child was on to something.<br />
<br />
And I've always been like this. As a little kid I enjoyed taking care of kids younger than me. When Pie was born, sixteen years ago, my non-existent ovaries practically exploded. I was the babysitter who never needed to be asked. I was endless kisses on a forehead and endless bedtime stories and a face that was always happy to see her. All those hundreds of back massages, never repaid (the rapscallion). I carried her around on my hip, me a boy of sixteen, as I did chores around the house. And only later did I realize how deeply, deeply weird all of that was. Weird, anyway, for a boy of sixteen. But maybe not weird for an older sister.<br />
<br />
My obviously maternal disposition has served me well as an educator--and allowed me to cheat, as I'm basically a female undercover in a heavily female field that looks to hire men--but made me feel out of place, too.<br />
<br />
<i>Why are you like this?</i> I've wondered. <i>What kind of man are you? What must everyone think?</i><br />
<br />
And I wished I was a woman standing up there, soft curves wrapped in a cashmere sweater, makeup helping my hazel eyes pop, silver earrings dangling against easy blonde waves, because so much of who I am would just make a lot more sense if that were the case. My manner with men, too, is an odd thing: always respectful, always professional, but light and with a hint of flirtation. It's the kind of thing that would be catching in a pretty young woman. It doesn't quite have the same effect when I do it.<br />
<br />
"Can you describe Morningstar to me?" my therapist asked. "What is she like?"<br />
<br />
I thought about it.<br />
<br />
"She's strong," I answered. "She's sure of herself. She's funny. She's intelligent. She has kind of a black humor because she's been through some shit, but she's come out on the other side. She's flirtatious. She knows how to have a good time." I paused. "She can take anything that gets thrown at her. She knows who she is."<br />
<br />
"Well, BB," Gender Therapist responded. "Have you not just described yourself?"<br />
<br />
Have I? This must be why she gets paid the big bucks, because that is an absolutely fantastic question. Has there been another BB in here all along? Has Badass Bitch just been waiting to escape?<br />
<br />
"Maybe Morningstar wants to step out," Gender Therapist suggested. "Maybe BB has been protecting her. Or maybe this is all a fantasy that you need to put away so you can be a wonderful, kind gay man. But I think that if you let Morningstar out, she may not want to go back in."<br />
<br />
Somewhere in my heart that feels true. The idea of Morningstar being out here, where the whole world can see her, where colleagues and friends and strangers and children and <i>men</i> can see her, is almost intoxicating. If I'm being honest about it, part of the reason I've had so much trouble finding a husband is because I've always wanted to be a wife.<br />
<br />
But there's a lot of complexity between here and there, you know? I'm not sure how to take that first step.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-57635059141289276972019-09-23T02:09:00.000-07:002019-09-23T23:18:47.471-07:00In the Light of the Morning Star<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
My body smoldered in the hazy light of the pit.<br />
<br />
How had I...?<br />
<br />
Where...?<br />
<br />
Flashes sparked behind my eyes, too many to count, too many to reason out, a boundless loop of vignettes that seemed to come from separate lives but that I somehow knew were all mine.<br />
<br />
<i>Cheerleading routines in the front yard, an impromptu squad formed with a cousin and a friend. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The shimmer eye shadow that made my hazel irises shine, but that I'd later look back on with embarrassment. "It was 2003," I'd explain, all tinkling laughter. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
More and more. All these scenes.<i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Standing in my mother's office, hard plastic shoulder pads on my narrow frame, feeling a desolation no nine-year-old could articulate. Looking at my father, who held a $20 bill in his hand and disappointment in his eyes. Pleading in a little boy voice, "Dad, I don't want to play..."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Being admitted onto the squad, all of sixteen, and thinking I'd </i>made it<i>. That with the bows in my hair and the skirt on my waist and the chest that had finally come in I was one of them now. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Twelve years old, in bed weeping, begging God to make me normal. "Why can't I like girls?" </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Twelve years old, licking my cherry-watermelon lipstick and sharing a confidence with Britney in the locker room. "I think he's going to ask me to winter formal..."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Twenty-one years old, at a nightclub with straightened hair and a button-up shirt, out of the closet all of a month. Seeing my boyishness and softness as an asset for the first time, but not knowing how to use it. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Twenty-one years old, in a hot-pink tee with green Greek letters on my chest. My running shorts are neon blue and of course the first time he talks to me I'm a sweaty mess, just off a three-mile run and practically soaking through my sports bra, my ponytail in a bird's nest of a French braid. The way his warm brown eyes crinkle when I smile shyly. The way they lock on mine. His voice like a warm breeze: "I know this place off campus..."</i><br />
<br />
I jolted fully awake with a shuddering gasp. "Where..." I wanted to call his name, but couldn't remember it. My ribs screamed as I rolled onto my side, and I moaned at the electric shock that radiated through my shoulder joint when I maneuvered my left arm to push myself into a sitting position on the abrasive ground.<br />
<br />
"Where am I?"<br />
<br />
My voice was hoarse, husky, but even so there was a lightness to it that seemed both foreign and right. I looked around. I was in the middle of some kind of crater, surrounded by glass and fire and bits of smoking sand, like I was a comet that had crashed to Earth. Sandstone pillars towered around me in a wide circle, an orange and red Stonehenge. I made to stand, and that's when I noticed: the me who'd fallen into this trance wasn't the me who was waking from it.<br />
<br />
My hips were rounded and smooth, my thighs wider than before, my soft flat stomach tapering upward into a pair of full pink breasts. Every part of me was changed. When I stumbled to my feet, briefly teetering as I misjudged how the weight distribution would pull my frame, I stood several inches shorter than before. A lock of thick flaxen hair blew across my face in the hot breeze, revealing a texture so wavy it was almost curling. That, at least, was the same.<br />
<br />
She was at my side before I knew it, her platinum hair and blue eyes shining from a face that looked as tired as I'd ever seen it. She was always so exhausted when we encountered one another. Her arms were strong, though.<br />
<br />
"Let me help you, Starlight," <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2017/04/reunion.html">Good</a> said, putting her hand beneath my shoulder.<br />
<br />
"Where are we?" I croaked. My voice was musical, bright. What an odd thing. It sounded exactly like the voice I'd always heard in my head, but never aloud.<br />
<br />
"A place of truth," she answered. "Where material realities yield to spiritual ones."<br />
<br />
"I don't understand."<br />
<br />
"You will."<br />
<br />
The dust-choked air cleared before us, revealing a pair of twin rock columns that framed a sere landscape beyond. Between them appeared an immensity of translucent liquid material, and then Good and I were standing in front of a mirror that must have stretched fifty feet high. She looked weary, careworn, concerned, but still pretty, and I looked...<br />
<br />
"Like my mother," I whispered. My mother fairer, my mother younger, but still.<br />
<br />
Good lifted a hand to my face and drew her finger softly down my cheek. "You've always looked like your mother"<i>--A twelve-year-old boy, wrapping brown construction paper around the bright pink cover of a paperback book, so no one would know he was reading </i>The Princess Diaries<i>--</i>"But yes, now it's more pronounced."<br />
<br />
I twirled before the reflection, surveying the lean curves enveloping my still-tall body.<br />
<br />
"I have a fat ass," I noted, with something like joy.<br />
<br />
Good laughed, and in the distance I could hear the most glorious wind chimes. "Your ass is perfectly fine."<br />
<br />
The vignettes were still playing, but now they were in full color, parading across the diaphanous screen of light arrayed before us.<br />
<br />
<i>A thirteen-year-old boy, dreaming about princesses and devouring </i>The Royal Diaries<i> series. His father standing in the kitchen doorway, disgust etched on every feature of his face. "Why do you even care about that shit?"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>An eleven-year-old boy, finding his friends in the heroes of </i>Animorphs<i>. His favorite character is Rachel, who's both beautiful and strong. In his superhero fantasies, he's just like her.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>A tall girl, awkward in a blue bikini, careening out over the lake but refusing to let go of the rope swing.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"You're a chicken!" yells a voice from the shore.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>She turns back angrily. "I'm not a chicken! You don't know that there aren't rocks!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>A five-year-old boy, sitting in his grandmother's basement, appealing and needling as the crease between her blue eyes grows deeper.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"BB, I can't," she tries to explain. "Your father will be angry..."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"Please, just one finger," the boy begs.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The woman's resolve weakens and she pulls out the brush. "Okay, but just one."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The blonde girl, older now, scanning an immense parking lot for an opening in the sea of occupied spaces. Looking in her rear-view mirror at the passengers, whose t-shirts and makeup match her own. "Listen, you drunk bitches!" But then her resolve weakens too and the three of them dissolve into cackling laughter.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Another boy, the one from before. The one with the brown eyes. His smile so big. The little house in Alexandria. My swelling stomach. A date marked on a calendar--</i><br />
<br />
"No!" I shrieked, recoiling from the scene. I turned on Good with accusing tears in my sparkling hazel eyes. "Why would you show me that? Show me what I can't..."<br />
<br />
I didn't need the projector now, because the movie was rolling in my head unbidden.<br />
<br />
<i>Nine-year-old BB, a shirt over his head, an earring dangling from his ear, bitterness in his heart, staring into the looking glass over the beaten-up bureau and thinking that he would have been pretty, if only. Eighteen-year-old BB, hearing the soft laughter of the girl from the bunk bed below, in the arms of his freshman-year roommate, and feeling in that laughter a longing deeper and sadder than he can begin to fathom.</i><br />
<br />
"Bright One," Good pulled me into an embrace as thirty years of loss formed a weight that drove me to my knees. "You've always known."<br />
<br />
Always, always, always. So backwards. So <i>perverse</i>. Obscene. Everything out of joint. Nothing as it should be. The girl, Morning Star, unborn. Or born wrong. In a prison.<br />
<br />
<i>Fifteen-year-old BB, sitting in English class in the fall of 2003.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"It's like when you have the brain of one gender but stuck in the body of another," a guffawing tenth-grader informs his neighbors.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>A second boy shakes his head in a surprise display of empathy. "Man. That has to be awful."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>And then the sudden voice, stark with sadness and conviction, that answers in BB's head: <b>"IT IS."</b></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>He says nothing, and throws the thought away as he turns back to his assignment.</i><br />
<br />
I doubled over on the ground, crying so hard I could barely breathe. Good put a hand on my shoulder and wept softly into my golden hair.<br />
<br />
"Does he know?" I asked, thinking of the young man with the brown eyes. The little house. How he looked at me in those ridiculous running shorts. "Does he know I'm not there? Somehow?"<br />
<br />
She knelt to the desert floor and wrapped me in her arms, and then we held each other as we both sobbed. My grief was all for myself. Hers was for me--and for the infinite pain she tried so hard to lighten in her circuits of the world. We sat there a long time, two shuddering women, and when the tears finally stopped I felt hollowed out. Like I'd never cry again. Or like I'd never stop crying. Like I'd just released the first volley in an endless torrent of grief.<br />
<br />
For a while the only sound was wind coursing through dust. When we took our feet again I found myself wrapped in a soft white robe that she secured around me with delicate fingers. I remembered, and breathed, and prayed, and let my voice ring out over the sandstone, and cried again, and thought about how beautiful the ochre sun was as it dipped toward the desert horizon. She stood next to me the whole time but said nothing. Did nothing. Just let me be. Just let me feel it.<br />
<br />
When the closing of the day turned the dunes pink and the skies violet, I turned to her again.<br />
<br />
"Why did this happen to me?" I asked.<br />
<br />
She sighed and looked up into the heavens, toward the God who'd made her, too, as much as He'd made me.<br />
<br />
"I don't know," she said, her blue eyes painted pomegranate and aquamarine in the dawning stars of the night. "But I know you were made to bear pain, and to rebound from it. As you've already done, over and over. From the first time I met you. You were born for resilience. Born to overcome, and then to carry that strength. Born to break the night and herald the day."<br />
<br />
She smiled.<br />
<br />
"Like the Morning Star."<br />
<br />
I considered all of the impossible considerations.<br />
<br />
"Can I?" I asked. "Overcome?"<br />
<br />
She surveyed the constellations that were fanning their sparkling raiment out over the vast expanse of the moonless black desert.<br />
<br />
"I think so," she answered.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-74996646269353072912019-09-02T18:30:00.002-07:002019-09-02T18:53:30.096-07:00An Untitled Chapter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
In my early years here, I said so much. There was a lot to say. Everything around and within me was morphing, changing, revealing, resettling. I was in college, and every day seemed like a new corner of self-discovery and endless possibility. Some of my loquaciousness owed, too, I think, to the developmental stage I was at; that first year I was 20, an adolescent, and I talked through my feelings with the earnestness of someone who needed to figure things out and the candidness of someone who hadn't yet trusted and been burned.<br />
<br />
Today I'm much more circumspect. And today, in general, less changes. Most of my twenties were the laying of so much groundwork, all for a career I've now started. I'm still a teacher. I still live in a log cabin in the middle of Alaska. I'm still very, very gay and very, very single and very, very ambivalent about the direction I see my future going. I used to muse endlessly about every potential path, but that's a habit <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-long-dark-night.html">I fell out of</a> around the middle of my twenties. There are too many prospective avenues, and more than a few that might veer unanticipated into your line of sight right before you hit them. Better to report when there's something to report.<br />
<br />
I suppose that's a drawn-out way of saying that I'm all right, but in a holding pattern.<br />
<br />
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<br />
As another fall begins here in Alaska, cold and early and yielding swiftly to winter, I have the time and space to sort through some things that have long needed sorting. There are at least five possible career options open to me for next fall, any one of which would take my life in a radically different direction. Which to pursue? Not all of them are in education, as I never saw myself spending my entire professional life as a teacher, and the ones outside the classroom range widely but are each at least feasible. I only get this one life. Just this one span of time. I don't want to waste it.<br />
<br />
A further complicating factor, in my life and in the life of this blog, is that some of this work would by definition not be something whose details I could openly discuss. When I was nineteen and my vocational world consisted of lecture halls--led by someone else--and the student newspaper, I was free to divulge every dirty bit. But a job with the federal government? A job in a law-enforcement capacity (strange as that might sound)? If I find success in some of these endeavors, a huge swath of my life will be out of bounds here. But one must advance.<br />
<br />
Several years ago, when I was still living on the East Coast, I took <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2015/10/into-goldlands.html">a trip into the Goldlands</a> whose nature I never disclosed to you and then had a pleasant lunch with a friend (who's since gotten engaged; what a world). I was, in fact, entering the application process for a federal role about which I felt very passionate, and successfully completed the first round of screening before being eliminated later that year.<br />
<br />
"You are a really strong candidate," my assigned mentor told me at the time. I was twenty-seven and had taken the setback well, but it was still a disappointment. "You just need to gain some more life experiences and then come apply again."<br />
<br />
Four years later, I'm arranging another trip into a city and shooting for the same goalpost. Working, as well as I can, toward long-term fulfillment. But this is a game that requires patience, and even if I'm chosen it could be more than a year before I learn of it. So other arrangements have to be made in the meantime. Other possibilities weighed.<br />
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<br />
And then there's just the stuff going on with <i>me</i>, and figuring out the nature of who I am. <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-on-my-mind.html">Coming out</a> on this blog eleven years ago felt emotionally wrenching, but compared to the dilemma facing me now it seems downright easy. I'm not going to elaborate at present because there's nothing to elaborate on, save uncertainty and confusion and a lot of heartache felt over a long time. But you should know that I'm working through some heavy-duty stuff. Trying to get to the bottom of who, exactly, lives in this head of mine. The summer maybe provided some insights.<br />
<br />
Way back in January I was planning for a potential visit to a far-off tropical country, but when a number of things on that front fell through I took a hard turn north and wound up in a place I'd dreamed about going since I was twelve years old: Russia.<br />
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<br />
I had a summer off, a healthy bank account, a near-lifelong ambition, and career aspirations that might be helped by the trip, so I threw caution to the winds and hopped on a plane. There were so many surreal moments during this excursion. Seeing Saint Basil's for the first time, when it sneaked up on me from around a corner and brought tears to my eyes. Walking through an incandescent Red Square at night. Standing before the cavernous entry hall of Russia's largest university, then entering it as a student enrolled in the summer language program. Three weeks in Moscow flew.<br />
<br />
For the whole of this near-month I shared an airy, sun-soaked Moscow flat with two Americans, one pursuing a PhD and the other a cultural interest, who quickly became erstwhile friends. On our last day together, after many restaurants and study sessions and museums shared between us, we walked the shiny parquet floor and mused about the strange bond we'd formed.<br />
<br />
"When I first met you I was a little bit wary," the 28-year-old PhD candidate, Radical Guy, confessed. "I thought, 'Okay, this is a roommate who's much more social than I am.' But it wound up being a good thing. You got us to do things we wouldn't have done otherwise."<br />
<br />
"What do you mean?" I asked.<br />
<br />
"Think about when we went out the other night."<br />
<br />
It had been a fun evening, a social mishmash of young professors and international students who had as many reasons for being there as places they came from. Laughter and clinking glasses and halting Russian (quickly mocked in gleeful English) had formed a soundtrack to the gathering.<br />
<br />
"Most of those people were there because of you," Radical Guy said. "Engineer Guy and I just kind of showed up. You've really been the social glue of our group."<br />
<br />
It was one of the better compliments I've ever gotten, and it happened to be true.<br />
<br />
<i>Whatever you're supposed to do, </i>I thought.<i> Whoever you're supposed to be, you are not going to find that person in the middle of Alaska.</i><br />
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<br />
I need to find a therapist. I need to make some phone calls. And, in about a month, I need to board another plane, this one taking me to a long weekend and a job screening. Until then, I'm just hanging tight. Trying to be ready to take the right step at whatever juncture comes next.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-42471642460440757782019-05-23T02:02:00.002-07:002019-05-23T02:07:35.784-07:00The PrinceI am not the peaceful prince<br />
Who wields the sceptered sun<br />
Who came to clear the clouds and to<br />
Shine light on everyone<br />
<br />
I am not the scribe of law<br />
Or font of wisdom pure<br />
Not the king to care for all<br />
Or safety to ensure<br />
<br />
I am chaos, fury come<br />
The sword on which will gleam<br />
The blood of wailing peoples run<br />
A steaming, tear-streaked stream<br />
<br />
I am not release from sin<br />
I'm vengeance crowned with greed<br />
I am retribution with<br />
An army at my feet<br />
<br />
I am fire in the night<br />
Arrived in steel-tipped rage<br />
I am pillage, I am rape<br />
I am Death engaged<br />
<br />
I will melt the very ground<br />
In sulfurous tides of flame<br />
I will lift a banner proud<br />
Above your smoking plain<br />
<br />
I will take no bribe of gold<br />
My only price is life<br />
A mountain of you, stiff and cold<br />
Will be my sole delight<br />
<br />
I am starlight beaten black<br />
A wolf borne of a sheep<br />
What you have made you can't turn back<br />
Nor fly from pay you've reapedBrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-2582095706058710092019-03-31T18:28:00.000-07:002019-03-31T18:46:41.857-07:00'Round the Unexpected Turns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm a planner. Always have been. That stems, I think, from the fact that I am also a worrier, and that from childhood I've been plagued by these episodes of spiralling what-ifs wherein I envision every dark and nightmarish scenario that could play out in my life. That's why I maintained full auto coverage on a twelve-year-old car everyone told me was a clunker. It's why I insure every single flight I take. It's why I double-check locks, memorize phone numbers, and make those doctor's visits sooner rather than later. It's why I plan. The planning makes me feel better; it provides contingencies and, what's more, it provides purpose.</div>
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But I've also learned, amply, that the plans sometimes have a way of falling off as life paves unexpected paths. Who would have ever thought, for instance, that I'd be in Alaska? Certainly not me.</div>
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I spent most of the spring semester laying carefully constructed itineraries for a summer spent living and working in a tropical country many miles from here, only to have my hand forced by flaky landlords and evasive prospective employers. Unwilling to book air passage across an ocean with neither housing nor work lined up, I instead paid for a flight headed the other way. </div>
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Home. </div>
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Home, which I miss so much.</div>
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"I'm excited to see you," I told my grandmother by phone.</div>
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"You are not," she teased.</div>
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I laughed, but was surprised to find my eyes misting with tears. I'd been facing the prospect of not seeing her, not seeing my siblings, not seeing any of my family and friends or the land of my birth, until Christmas. I hadn't realized how much I was yearning for all of it until the moment I gave myself permission to go back.</div>
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"I'm so glad the trip fell through," I continued. "I didn't even really want to go. It just felt like the right thing for me professionally."</div>
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There may yet be another trip, a briefer one, that will replace my aborted equatorial junket, but I'll let you know about that when and if it happens. It, like its predecessor, is planned in the service of a career transition--that may or may not occur. </div>
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I don't know much of what the future holds. But I know that, come May 25, I'm going home. Which is great for me, but will provide the readers of this blog and the followers of my Flickr page with dividends as well, in scenic photography if in nothing else. </div>
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After all: Alaska is beautiful, but there's nothing like Virginia in summertime. </div>
BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-68848680409928450252019-02-19T00:04:00.001-08:002019-02-19T00:04:14.317-08:00Meeting Fate in the Forest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
The crack of the branch was just loud enough to alert me that something was there. It's a peculiarity of his; he likes to let you know he's around, but doesn't want to announce his presence. In our previous encounters it's been a creaking floorboard, or an open door, or a window left ajar. Maybe it's just his British understatement--despite his being incontrovertibly not British--at work, or maybe he just wants to imbue these deeply weird visits with some sense of normalcy. Whatever the reason, he always pops up in the most mundane ways.<br />
<br />
I had decided to go for a walk because of the unseasonably warm weather--highs nearing 20 degrees had turned the clouds soft and prodded them to release flurries of pillowy white snow--through a favored path near my house, and I spun quickly at the sound of snapping wood, fearing I'd encountered the wolf rumored to be prowling outside the village. My long hair in the falling snow made for a shimmer of gold and white as I turned about--and there he was. The same as he'd ever been.<br />
<br />
"Hello, BB," he smiled, his ample stomach covered in a blue cashmere sweater and his grey curls peeking out from beneath a pageboy cap.<br />
<br />
I suppressed a gasp as he came into view.<br />
<br />
"Fate."<br />
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<br />
His grin faded but his eyes still twinkled. "It's good to see you."<br />
<br />
In all the years we'd known each other, and through meetings at turns teasing, adversarial, even, once, outright violent, he'd never looked at me the way he was looking at me now. Like he was seeing something he hadn't noticed before.<br />
<br />
"Fate," I said. "Last time..."<br />
<br />
I let the apology hang in the air and he waved it away.<br />
<br />
"You were young last time," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "And in a great deal of pain, most of which was not your doing."<br />
<br />
I laughed against the shame that burned beneath my cheeks.<br />
<br />
"I think I'll always be young to you," I said.<br />
<br />
The smile returned to his face.<br />
<br />
"Even so."<br />
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<br />
"Thank you," I responded, deciding for once to accept compassion when it was offered to me. I resolved to do that more often. And what could I say, anyway?<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm sorry I fell so far. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm sorry I lost my hope. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm sorry I became someone else for a while. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm sorry I hurt you. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm sorry I hurt myself.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The last time we'd seen each other was five years earlier, in the context of a life-consuming crisis that ended with my attempted suicide in October 2013. Childhood demons had risen to devour me, and in the spiral of despair and rage that followed my fate felt like a black hole of anguish--and he, Fate, the master of that anguish. When he'd appeared in my parents' kitchen in Mountain Town I was drunk and wounded. I spoke in a way that made me recoil to remember. I hit him.<br />
<br />
His dark eyes in my present offered understanding, forgiveness, some measure of respect.<br />
<br />
"Do you know why I'm here?" he asked.<br />
<br />
"Yes," I said, then cocked my head in genuine surprise at my own answer. For once he didn't have a leg up on me. I started laughing. "There's something I never thought I'd say."<br />
<br />
He loosed a full-throated guffaw and kept taking me in with those impenetrable eyes. "So you've figured it out."<br />
<br />
I nodded. "I'm leaving, aren't I?"<br />
<br />
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<br />
"In time," he responded. "Along a path unique to you. But yes."<br />
<br />
He clapped me on the back. "You're not meant to linger, my boy. Not here. Not yet. Too many strands for you. Lives to be lived. In some ways you see and some you don't."<br />
<br />
I considered that.<br />
<br />
"I think I've always known," I said after a long pause. "That it wasn't going to be the white-picket thing for me. I've been chasing that because I never got to have it as a kid. But I can't ever replace my own childhood. All I can do is build my adult life. And maybe I will have the white-picket thing. Maybe it just looks different for me."<br />
<br />
"It looks different for everyone," he offered. "Happiness wears many colors. Sings many songs. Each tune lovely to the ear for which it was made. It's something that gives me comfort in difficult moments."<br />
<br />
I gazed at him a while, tried to imagine myself through his eyes.<br />
<br />
"I know now why you come," I said. "Well, not <i>why</i> you come. But why you come when you do."<br />
<br />
"And why is that?"<br />
<br />
Memories, memories. Years floating by.<br />
<br />
"When I was getting ready to graduate college," I said. "You <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2011/04/old-man.html">came then</a>. When I <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2013/06/yet-again.html">started working</a> in publishing, with all that opened up. All that taught me. You've visited at touchstones. Moments of realization. Or reckoning." My eyes went hard, and his went cloudy. "Last time..."<br />
<br />
"A touchstone," he pronounced, his smile sad. "When you teetered between death and life. Between a closing of all your fates, and the opening of many possible ones." <br />
<br />
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<br />
Truth hit me like a gust of subzero wind.<br />
<br />
"You didn't know," I gasped. "You didn't know what would happen."<br />
<br />
"I knew what <i>could</i> happen," he answered, his mouth a thin line. "Not what would. In so many ways I am only a steward. It is easier stewarding for some than for others. Your openness has always made you..." He waved his hand in a circle. "Confounding. All these potentialities spiraling off. And one or two so very black. As I said, it's good to see you."<br />
<br />
I pondered the drifting snowflakes, each frozen sparkle unique. Each a possibility, never replicated. Falling all over and dancing on my fair face.<br />
<br />
"It's good to see you, too," I said, and realized, again to moderate shock, that I meant it. His past visits had so often portended another milestone on the black road to death along which I raced for the first half of my twenties. Today his presence just confirmed I'd figured out something that needed figuring-out.<br />
<br />
"You threw off a measure of fear when you came here," he said. "Continue throwing it off. Follow the voice that calls, even when it doesn't tell you what you think you ought to hear. Your road can encompass so much if only you will embrace it."<br />
<br />
I thought back on decisions made, plans laid, e-mails sent, phone calls placed. A friend mourned. All within the space of about a week, last week, when I'd taken stock of things and chosen to pursue an ambition I'd laid aside for timeliness' sake.<br />
<br />
"So you do know some things," I said.<br />
<br />
"What can be," he answered. "What might be. The balance in many particulars is up to you."<br />
<br />
"That's what Good said," I noted. "She appeared in the airport <a href="http://thebrightestboy.blogspot.com/2017/04/reunion.html">when I first came here</a>. She said I was more tightly bound to you than some, less tightly bound than others."<br />
<br />
"She's wise," he mused. "And she likes you."<br />
<br />
I snorted. "She should come around more often. Maybe send a few winning lotto tickets my way."<br />
<br />
"I'll have to mention it to her," he said dryly. The winter sunset had colored the sky in rapidly fading hues of subdued copper and scarlet. He appraised them like they were an approaching bus. "That'll be me, then. It's been good to chat."<br />
<br />
He lifted his hand to wave, but before I could stop myself I'd stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug.<br />
<br />
"Thank you for my possibilities."<br />
<br />
He surveyed me with genuine surprise. Again, not something I ever thought I'd see.<br />
<br />
"You know, given how our other discussions have gone, I expected a somewhat different reception," he pronounced. "I seem to recall your pushing me out a window twice--no, <i>three</i> times. Two of them at a considerable height. In light of all that I'd been keeping my eye out for a wood-chipper or a renegade snow machine. Perhaps a rabid moose."<br />
<br />
I laughed. "Two of those times you jumped--" He glared. "--Under duress, fine. Point conceded. And I looked into it, but you need a permit for a wood-chipper, so..."<br />
<br />
He stepped back with crinkling eyes.<br />
<br />
"Eyes and heart open, my young friend. And mind disciplined."<br />
<br />
The last blades of sunlight folded behind the evergreen horizon, and Fate vanished into the twilight.<br />
<br />
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<br />BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-25336139965488613972019-02-03T21:18:00.002-08:002019-02-03T21:18:22.718-08:00Suspended Animation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
In certain ways I feel like I've been chasing an ideal since I was about twenty-one. From that age, roughly, I've had this fantasy of living in a nice little apartment or townhouse, commuting to a job I at least reasonably enjoy, and doing things as self-indulgent as dating and having friends over on the weekends. Having, in essence, a normal life. And at various moments of my experience, that simple image has seemed in different ways not something I could attain, but more of an exotic apparition in need of being chased down. When I was young I had neither money nor employment, and was surrounded by interpersonal opportunities but constrained by financial dependence on toxic actors. Now I'm in my early thirties, financially and professionally sound (ish), but at the cost of deploying like some sort of academic paratrooper into the frozen wilds of the Arctic.<br />
<br />
What gives?<br />
<br />
"I don't feel like I'm asking for that much," I vented to my stepmother Marie recently. "Just for things to be settled. Just to be able to sit for a while. For things to be easier."<br />
<br />
"I don't know if anyone ever gets to have that," she responded.<br />
<br />
"But within reason, yes they do. I just want a house and a job and a social life. Just the basic elements of life. That's not unreasonable."<br />
<br />
"You're right. It's not."<br />
<br />
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<br />
I'm not happy in Point Goldlace. And that's hard for me to say, because there are parts of living in Point Goldlace that are absolutely, unambiguously <i>awesome</i>. My students are precocious, hilarious, psychotic goofballs with actual intellectual curiosity. The town itself is gorgeous, and the great majority of the residents are welcoming and warm. The little coffee shop that I fell in love with in the fall is run by a local church, the denizens of which have become a focal point in mine and the village's community. Church Girl and Church Guy, the twentysomething town barista and youth pastor, respectively, got engaged in December. Today, they invited me to their wedding.<br />
<br />
The charms of Point Goldlace are real, and not least among them is that going into work tends to actually brighten my mood. But I am so lonely. Lord, am I lonely.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Last weekend I was in the big city--Iceport, the only community in Alaska that can really claim the title of "big city"--for work and I found myself opening up. I organized discussions with colleagues. I got friendly with the local barista and started comparing hair-care tips. I was friendly and witty and fun, and I liked it. <i>God, </i>I thought later. <i>I'd forgotten this side of myself.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I know that I will eventually leave Point Goldlace. The two big questions are when, and to where? The when weights pretty heavily just now. Cutting and running after a single year would make me feel pretty awful, particularly in light of the students who have found, and who would be losing, a supportive and positive adult role model in me. But is that a price I'm willing to pay? Sacrificing my own happiness out of a sense of obligation to these young people who will, one way or another, trudge on regardless of my choice?<br />
<br />
And then there's the where. I have no way of knowing what sorts of positions will be available for the fall. Two are currently up, one in an area of Iceport where I'd like to work but carrying with it a gruff principal, the other in a coastal community that would make for much easier living but that is nearly as isolated as the town I'm in now. Why trade one remote dot for another? And why, if I shoot for Iceport and the socially illiterate boss, trade personal dissatisfaction and professional fulfillment for personal fulfillment and professional dissatisfaction? I hate that these decisions always seem to involve impossible trade-offs.<br />
<br />
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<br />
So I don't know if I'm staying or going. And if I'm going, I don't know the destination. That's really frustrating. Sometimes I think I see signs, or think an opportunity sounds absolutely perfect, and then it falls through. The stars don't align. Something just doesn't fall into place, even when it was so obvious that it should. In those moments, it's like God is dangling a vision of a future in front of me only to cruelly pull it away.<br />
<br />
Today in church the pastor shared the story of Habakkuk, a prophet who struggled with what he perceived as God's injustice and inconstancy.<br />
<br />
"When we first become Christians, it's like we're on a roller coaster," Church Man explained. "We're connected with Jesus, and everything is great, and we keep going up and up and up, and we expect to just continue in that direction. Getting higher and higher. But roller coasters don't work that way. Eventually, Christians reach a point where we go down that hill."<br />
<br />
The gist of this sermon was that feeling abandoned by God is normal and all right, a part of the faith life cycle the same as any other.<br />
<br />
"Sometimes God gives us hardship so we can develop perseverance," he added. "And come out on the other side of that with a more mature understanding of Him."<br />
<br />
It's not all unicorns and rainbows. Not all golden bells and soaring melodies. And I'd kind of been expecting those bells, because that's what it was like when I was young. When I needed it. Maybe He's testing me now. Maybe He's preparing me. All of my other trials, including the one that took me from Gori to Point Goldlace, seemed terrible at the time, and all eventually worked to my benefit, whether that was to improve my material condition or make me into a stronger person.<br />
<br />
So I'm trying to believe, even though it's hard. Even though it's scary. Even though sometimes I feel abandoned. My dearest hope is that want now will teach me gratitude later. That will have to be something I send up in a prayer.<br />
<br />
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<br />BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1047900042385397529.post-21435266791073852852019-01-01T20:30:00.002-08:002019-01-01T20:30:17.094-08:00New Year's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
A new day with new choices. Old friends celebrating old achievements. And a present that just keeps flowing along. How quickly the time has gone to 2019.BrightenedBoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04140255969796496082noreply@blogger.com1